Hundreds more students to benefit from renewed partnership

Students at Goldsmiths, University of London will continue to benefit from a range of international study, entrepreneurial and employment opportunities after the College renewed its partnership with Santander Universities.

Goldsmiths and Santander UK, through Santander Universities, have signed a three-year agreement to extend the partnership which has supported 775 Goldsmiths students through £750,000 of funding since 2012.

This fourth round of the partnership agreement will see Santander Universities supporting the College in the fields of education, employability and entrepreneurship to the value of £47,500 a year until academic year 2023-24. This support will be distributed through the Careers, Entrepreneur and international study teams at Goldsmiths.

Students who have been supported by the scheme attended a celebration to mark the new partnership agreement which was hosted by Professor Frances Corner, the Warden of Goldsmiths, and Matt Hutnell, the Director of Santander Universities.

The four students were Carly Attridge, a current entrepreneur in residence at Goldsmiths, and Becky Gove who are both recent graduates from the MA in Social Entrepreneurship, Sara Dos Santos who is a MA in Cultural Policy, Relations and Diplomacy graduate and Malikah Ullah who is studying BSc Psychology.

The support from Santander allowed all four to pursue projects linked to their studies, with Malikah undertaking an internship at a non-profit centre for at-risk children at Ikamva Labantwana in Cape Town, South Africa. The funding covered the programme fees which allowed her to complete the internship which was undertaken remotely as a result of Covid-19.

Malikah said: “Not only has working at Ikamva been rewarding, but I’ve learnt a ton about how to conduct research and make content both engaging and teachable."

“As a psychology student, this internship has given me real-life experience conducting research on sensitive subjects, including sexual violence, in order to create a final informative yet understanding piece which could be communicated to young girls. This internship was the highlight of 2019 and allowed me to make a true, tangible difference.”

The partnership with Santander enables Goldsmiths to add considerable value to its work in key areas. Highlights from the last three years include:

• Supporting some 70 students, with 46 students from widening participation backgrounds, to study or work internationally as part of the Go Abroad initiative
• Supporting students to start or develop their own businesses or enterprises
• Connecting students with a wide range of internship opportunities which have led to employment
• Separately to the partnership agreement, Santander Universities has recently awarded Goldsmiths an additional £12,000 in the current academic year to support student employability, and Santander also made additional awards to Goldsmiths in 2020 to support the College during Covid, with £25,000 for students or alumni who are freelancers to develop enterprise skills and a one-off award of £25,000 for micro-internships

Professor Frances Corner said “We have seen the difference this support has made to hundreds of our students’ studies, lives and careers and are delighted to continue and develop our partnership with Santander Universities."

“Given the considerable ongoing challenges presented by the pandemic, it’s important that we are able to call on this level of assistance to help our students work towards achieving their ambitions.”

Matt Hutnell, Director, Santander Universities, says: “Santander is committed to supporting higher education as well as local communities across the UK. We’re proud to continue our partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London for a further three years to ensure we can work together in providing even more opportunities which will benefit both students and the local community, particularly during this challenging time.”