Trustee – university partnerships – Volunteer Full Time NEW

What difference will you make?

This role will strengthen the organisation’s ability to build meaningful university partnerships and progression pathways. While early engagement is already in place, structured higher education involvement can significantly increase capacity, credibility and reach.

By bringing academic insight, the trustee will help ensure partnerships are realistic, aligned with university priorities and beneficial to students. This includes helping shape opportunities where students gain practical experience while contributing to live projects.

The role will also strengthen credibility with universities and stakeholders by demonstrating that higher education is represented at board level.

Ultimately, the impact of this role is stronger progression routes for young people and deeper collaboration between schools, universities and employers.

What are we looking for?

We are looking for someone with experience in higher education, university leadership, academic management or employer engagement within a university setting.

The most important requirement is practical understanding of how universities operate, make decisions and engage with external partners. This could include experience in academic leadership, careers services, widening participation, enterprise, partnerships or student employability.

We are particularly interested in someone who can identify how university resources and talent can be connected to real-world community benefit. This includes live projects, placements, mentoring, research support or digital development.

Experience of working across departments or building partnerships with schools, employers or public sector organisations would be valuable.

The role would suit someone who can think strategically while understanding operational realities. We are looking for someone who can challenge constructively and help shape a scalable university model.

We welcome applicants who bring lived experience aligned to widening participation, social mobility or barriers to progression.

Hybrid

What will you be doing?

Our trustee board is being established with strengths across education, employer engagement, funding and finance. We are already working with schools through pilot delivery, alongside college and university collaborations supporting real-world projects.

We are seeking a trustee with university or academic experience to help shape the higher education strand of The How2Hub. This role will bring insight into how universities operate and how they can play a practical role in connecting education with the world of work.

A key responsibility will be helping develop partnerships with universities, ensuring that student involvement, course alignment and institutional engagement are realistic and valuable. This includes supporting models where university students contribute to live projects, digital development, research, mentoring or content creation as part of their studies.

You will help the board understand how universities make decisions, how opportunities can align with academic priorities, and how partnerships can create value for students, institutions and the wider community.

The role will also support progression thinking, helping shape clearer pathways from school into further and higher education, apprenticeships and employment.

There is scope to contribute to a university partnerships sub-group as the organisation grows, helping maintain momentum and structure in this area.

This is an important stage. Early university collaboration is already underway, including students contributing to the platform build through real-world experience. The trustee will help turn this into a scalable and repeatable model.