In 2014 HEFCE funded ‘Think Physics,’ and as part of that project we produced annual reports for the funder. Those reports were – frankly – a bit dry, and not terribly useful for anyone else.
Fast-forward to the 2020s, and much has changed. HEFCE is now the Office for Students, and Think Physics is now NUSTEM. We’re now a STEM outreach and research group with a much broader focus, and broader funding too, from a combination of sources from within and beyond Northumbria University.
We thought the time was right to produce more comprehensive annual reports again. We’d also like to share those reports more widely, so you’ll find them below.
This page also carries links to project reports for some of our activities.
Annual Reports
Impact Report 2014-2020
The NUSTEM Theory of Change allows us to evaluate the impact that our activities have had in a range of areas. This report outlines the impact and outcomes from the first six years of NUSTEM. This is of particular relevance to REF processes.
Historical
For a historical view of where NUSTEM started, here is the first interim report we provided to HEFCE (our funders). At this point, the project was called ‘Think Physics’:
Project Reports
For externally funded projects, we provide reports to the funders. However, some of our projects are also used as part of our research. Where that is the case we will write reports outlining our findings. Sometimes we will also write journal articles and research papers with our findings. The reports are given on this page, and the academic reports are on our research pages.
2016–17 Engineering for Families, funded by the Platton Fund at the Community Foundation, allowed parents and carers to work alongside their children to learn about the importance and application of engineering.
2017–18 Family Space Explorers, funded by the UKSpace Agency helped to increase the confidence of families to talk about space and science.
2019–20 Geography: Past, present and future. This project was a collaboration between NUSTEM and researchers from Northumbria Universities cold and palaeo-environment (CAPE) research group.
2019–20 Careers in Initial Teacher Education, funded by the Careers and Enterprise Company and in collaboration with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (NELEP) was a feasibility study into the possibility of embedding careers-related learning into initial teacher education.
Briefing Papers
Principles of STEM Engagement
This document outlines what we believe practitioners and organisers should think about while planning STEM engagement activities.
Implementing the Tomorrow’s Engineers Code
This document provides an evidence-based, practical guide for improving the impact of STEM Engagement Activities. Written originally for organisations that have become signatories of the Tomorrow’s Engineers Code from EngineeringUK, we think that it’s relevant for all organisations involved in STEM engagement activities.
