The UCL East Community Board

The UCL East Community Board brings community expertise into UCL to ensure that the ways we work in our spaces and in our local communities is collaborative and mutually beneficial

The UCL East Community Board was established in 2023. Its purpose is to bring UCL and community partners together to discuss challenges, needs and opportunities in east London – and to generate responses together. Membership includes representation from a diversity of east London-based voluntary, community and creative sector organisations, who work on issues that complement the themes of UCL East’s Schools and Centres, as well as UCL staff who focus on public and community engagement.

The Community Board is a formal part of the university’s governance structure. Its objectives are to inform the ways that UCL works with and positively contributes to its locality, with a focus on the four local boroughs of Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest.

It brings community expertise into UCL to ensure that the ways we work in our spaces and in our local communities is collaborative, mutually beneficial, and enables us to tackle challenges from different perspectives.

The terms of reference of the board outline several aims:

• To bring UCL and community partners together to discuss challenges, needs and opportunities in east London – and to generate mutual responses;
• To identify and prioritise themes to be explored by the Board; ‘deep diving’ these to contribute to solutions that can bring about positive change;
• To inform discussions of access to UCL East’s Community Use of the campus and Interim Uses spaces policy and practices;
• To contribute to shaping UCL East public programming to reflect community priorities;
• To create a platform to build connections and collaborations between UCL and community partners, across these partner organisations, and across UCL’s wider network of stakeholders;
• To act as an intersection between UCL’s strategic regional partners, such as local authorities, and its community engagement (via the UCL East Engagement Board, which the Community Board reports to);
• To ensure that ideas and plans generated are shared with relevant UCL units with engagement activities in east London, to optimise coherence of activities.

Currently the board has representatives from nine local organisations, who represent a wide range of expertise from various sectors of the local community:

• Badu Community CIC.
• Bow Arts.
• Bromley by Bow Centre.
• Compost London.
• Disability Rights UK.
• Just Space.
• Mapping for Change.
• Rights and Equalities in Newham (REIN).
• Rabbits Road Press.

If you are interested in joining the board, please email Paris Hyman in the first instance. The Board’s is currently expanding and we are keen to hear from groups and organisations in Newham, Hackney, Tower Hamlets and Waltham Forest who represent or support the following sectors of our local community:

• Newly arrived / migrant communities.
• LGBTQ+ people.
• Music and nightlife communities.
• Older people.
• Sustainability and biodiversity.