In his first year at the University of Greenwich, Moumin Elnahas was at serious risk of being withdrawn from his course over unpaid tuition fees. But a £5,000 bursary from RSK Group, one of the university's strategic partners, turned his situation around.
Receiving this scholarship allowed me to pay off a large portion of my tuition and remain enrolled in my studies. It also helped cover essential transportation costs, making it possible for me to attend classes and stay focused on my education.
Moumin Elnahas, Student at University of Greenwich
Moumin's bursary is one strand of the support Greenwich's partners provide, alongside work placements, school workshops and community events. It all adds up to a huge impact on the community – and in 2025, the University worked with Social Value Portal to measure that impact for the first time.
These are the headlines:
SV£1.2m
Validated Social Value created across ten partners
£244k+
Invested in community initiatives
3.9k
Hours of educational activity delivered
240
Weeks of paid work placements provided
This case study looks at some of the most notable programmes across employability and skills, community impact, education and outreach, and sustainability.
In this case study:
Employability and skills
Getting a good job after university often depends on experience and contacts that not every student has. Greenwich wants its partnerships to close that gap by giving students paid work, training and direct access to employers while they study.
For instance, Visit Greenwich, the organisation that promotes Greenwich as a visitor destination, offered paid work placements, and Defigo Group invested in initiatives to build local skills and create routes into employment.
However, two partners stand out for the scale and range of their support: Alcatel Submarine Networks and RSK Group.
Alcatel Submarine Networks: Paid placements and accredited training
Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) designs, builds and installs subsea fibre-optic cables, with its Greenwich factory active since the 1850s.
In 2025 it provided 240 weeks of paid work placements, giving students real experience inside an engineering business. It also delivered 192 weeks of accredited training for new employees joining ASN, helping people starting their careers there gain recognised qualifications.
ASN and the university are also working together on what students learn. By shaping courses around the skills and priorities of the industry, Greenwich makes sure its graduates leave with the knowledge employers are looking for, giving them a stronger start in their careers.
UoG is looking to address our needs by refining courses to tailor to our business needs, this is welcomed and necessary.
Taj Bhambra, Site Managing Director, Alcatel Submarine Networks UK
RSK Group: Bursaries, mentoring and routes into green careers
RSK Group is an environmental and engineering consultancy that works on sustainability projects around the world. It funds £5,000 bursaries for first-year STEM undergraduates, including students of engineering and architecture.
The money pays for course materials, laptops, travel and tuition fees. For many recipients, this removes the financial pressure that competes with study.
The RSK award has financially helped me out a lot… I will no longer have to struggle with my school and work balance as the award has reduced the pressure of me worrying about how I will be able to pay for things and given me more of a leeway to focus more on my studies and my future career than over working myself at work.
Malika-Amma Crosby, BSc Construction Management student
The support continues beyond the bursary, for students who want to work in the sector. Its staff mentor Greenwich students and help them build professional networks, its businesses meet students at careers fairs, and the company runs CV and application advice sessions and talks on green careers. The effect shows in recruitment.
58
RSK staff volunteering as mentors to Greenwich students
6
RSK businesses meeting students at Greenwich careers fairs
60%
More applications to RSK's graduate scheme from Greenwich than from any other university
RSK colleagues
A university is part of its local community, and as such can benefit the people who live around it as well as its students. In 2025, Greenwich's partners invested more than £244,000 in community initiatives, including staff time, materials and equipment as well as cash.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich ran meet-the-buyer events showcasing local supply chain opportunities to local businesses. ASN donated £10,000 to local community projects, and Peabody, one of London's largest housing associations, provided equality, diversity and inclusion training.
One of the most visible examples of the university's community role came through its partnership with Charlton Athletic Football Club:
Charlton Athletic Football Club: Bringing fans, schools and community groups together
In 2025 Charlton Athletic Football Club invested in initiatives that strengthen community networks, bringing different groups in the area together.
A key example is Red, White and Black Day, the club's annual celebration of equality and inclusion. It brought together pupils from local schools and members of community groups to parade from Charlton Station to The Valley.
30+
Years as part of Charlton's identity
500+
Pupils and community group members in the 2025 parade
~300
Greenwich students, staff and alumni at the match for the university's annual takeover day
And Charlton won, too!
Seeing our fans, local schools, and community groups all walking side by side on Red, White and Black Day really brought home what this Club stands for, that everyone matters, and that Charlton's heart truly beats for everyone.
Dr Michael Seeraj, Head of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Charlton Athletic Community Trust
Red, White, and Black Day
Education and outreach
The choices young people make at 16 and 18 shape the rest of their lives, but many make them without much information about the options open to them. To help close this gap, Greenwich's partners delivered almost 3,900 hours of educational activity in 2025.
Blue Earth
Runs the Blue Earth Summit, and volunteered staff time to support visits by school children and local residents.
Defigo
Staff volunteered with students at local schools and colleges.
ASN
Ran educational sessions and gave expert time to students.
Peabody
Gave 40 hours of staff expertise to help shape university and college courses.
One of the biggest contributions in this area came from Charlton Athletic Community Trust:
Make It Make Sense
Charlton Athletic Community Trust runs education, health and social inclusion programmes across south-east London and Kent. With the university, CACT runs Make It Make Sense (MiMS), a programme for secondary school pupils that helps them understand their options after school.
MiMS is designed around two national frameworks: the Gatsby Benchmarks, which set out eight standards of good careers guidance, and the Skills Builder Framework, which breaks employability down into eight essential skills, with each MiMS workshop focusing on two or three of them.
The five MiMS workshops
Building confidence and raising aspirationsFinancial literacy and problem solvingCareer exploration and role modellingQualifications and personal developmentMental health and resilience
By working together, we have been able to deliver a lasting impact for communities over the years, which the University has now been able to measure and evidence.
Jason Morgan MBE, Chief Executive, Charlton Athletic Community Trust
Learn more about MiMS:
Sustainability and environment
Greenwich's Sustainability Strategic Action Plan 2024-30 sets out an ambition to be the go-to university for students who want to solve real-world challenges. Its partners are making this a reality by giving students real environmental problems to work on and bringing environmental expertise to local businesses and the community.
Let's take a look at how one particular partner, RSK Group, has achieved this:
RSK Group: Turning the campus into a sustainability lab
Through Living Labs, supported by RSK, Greenwich uses its own campuses as test sites where students tackle real sustainability problems and their findings can be put into practice.
Smart energy monitoring
An Electrical and Electronics Engineering Masters student built a real-time energy monitoring system for the university. The energy-saving recommendations it produced are now being put in place in some of the university's highest energy-using laboratories.
Nature monitoring at Avery Hill
A Global Environmental Change Masters student set up a species monitoring programme at the Avery Hill campus, training staff and students who were new to nature monitoring so they can help manage the site's natural habitats.
We can't achieve the critical sustainability outcomes the world needs without collaboration.
Simon Goldsmith, Head of Strategic Sustainability, University of Greenwich
University of Greenwich Campus
Working with Social Value Portal
From bursaries, to placements in industry, to a matchday parade, Greenwich’s partnerships are active across an impressive range of initiatives.
Using the Social Value TOM System™, the UK’s leading framework for measuring Social Value, with a bespoke set of measures and independent validation from Social Value Portal, the university can now demonstrate the impact of its strategic partnerships programme as a whole. That evidence shows partners, university leadership, and the wider community what working together delivers, and supports Greenwich’s civic ambitions for the region.
Beyond demonstrating the impact achieved in 2025, this evidence will help the University strengthen existing partnerships, identify new opportunities for collaboration and ensure that Social Value remains central to its strategic approach.
Our strategic partnerships are about creating meaningful opportunities for students, employers and communities. Being able to independently measure and evidence the social value generated through these relationships is an important step forward, helping us demonstrate our wider impact and identify where we can make an even greater difference.
Dr Leon Annett, Head of UK Partnerships, University of Greenwich
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