Best Way to Show Initiative

19 June 2015 | Updated 01 January 1970

Social Informal Learning Spaces (SILS) at the University of Brighton, is the winner of The AUDE University Impact Initiative of the Year Award.

The SILS project at Brighton University was regarded as the outstanding initiative which had the ‘most positive impact’ on its University and students.

The annual AUDE Awards, held this year at the University of Stirling, aim to highlight and celebrate the exceptional achievements of universities and those who work within them.

The University of Brighton impressed the judges with their innovative SILS project. SILS was primarily developed around research and the realisation that the role of the university is changing and therefore needed to provide a different experience for the student. Brighton responded to this brief by designing its social informal and learning spaces to look natural and crop out of nowhere, making students comfortable and at ease with their surroundings.

This award not only recognised the space for which the award was granted but honours the team that developed it.

The University of Brighton is located on three sites within Brighton; two sites in Eastbourne and one site in Hastings. This geographical spread could be regarded as unique for a single university in the UK and presents challenges which one-location universities would not encounter.

The SILS model works as a mechanism by which the Universities resources can be effectively applied across the various estates to the benefit of all students.

The AUDE Awards are the inaugural Higher Education Estates and Facilities Awards, designed to encourage excellence in the higher education estates facilities sector.

Picture: The SILS project at Brighton University was regarded as the outstanding initiative.

Article written by Cathryn Ellis | Published 19 June 2015