Our mission has always been to “make student life better” for you, students at the University of Huddersfield.

Back in 2018 we launched a new strategic plan, and since then we’ve created opportunities for 42,865 students to create personal connections, developed inclusive communities for 11,985 students and 3833 students have delivered meaningful change.

Alongside all the usual activity, events and excellent services we set out to achieve 4 main aims:

Aim 1: By 2025, all students will connect with us in the best way for them, they will understand our services and know we are there if they need us.

What we’ve done… auto enrolled students with free membership for their academic societies, revamped our welcome week programme to provide inclusive and affordable events for new students, launched a new Peer Support programme offering a listening ear to those who need it.

14, 843 students have voted in our elections, our Advice Centre dealt with 36, 889 enquiries and 7591 appointments and we’ve enrolled 52,605 students into their Academic Societies.

Aim 2: By 2025, 60% of students will be an active member of the HSU community, developing their personal skills and co creating activities.

What we’ve done… formed a university Sports and Activity Board to provide more opportunities to play Sport, helped students living in halls make new friends through our Halls Ambassadors and created new, paid roles for students to lead our student networks and campaigns.

9574 students have joined a Sports Club or Society, we’ve brought home the Varsity trophy 3 times and paid out £648,579 in student staff wages.

Aim 3: By 2025, 20% of students will lead and create change by becoming leaders within the HSU, the University, and local and global communities.

What we’ve done… developed a volunteer transcript accredited by Volunteering Kirklees to recognise the achievements of our student leaders, created six, student-led networks all running activity on campus, and

Students have raised £21,049 for charities, we’ve given out 3669 volunteer transcripts to our student leaders and 122 students ran in our elections.

Aim 4: To create an agile, diverse and values-led culture.

What we’ve done… we’ve invested in new HR software redesigned our recruitment processes and invested in the leadership development opportunities across our whole staff team. Our innovative Cheers for Peers system enables staff to recognise the hard work of their colleagues.

90% of our staff say that they recommend working for Huddersfield Students’ Union and we’ve made commitments to become a more inclusive organisation, and have accreditations to acknowledge this work:

Submitted to the Investing in Ethnicity Matrix and improved the organisations overall score by 16%.

• Became a level 1 Disability Confident Committed organisation.
• Became an Inclusive Employers and achieved the Bronze award.
• We’ve listened to our students and made a commitment to become anti-racist.

Underpinning these aims we’ve become a more sustainable organisation, both environmentally and financially – always finding values led and affordable services for students.

Take a look at what students have been doing over the past 5 years...

Our Officer Teams over the years...

Inspired by students, and empowering students to make change. HJere are some of the highlights and their achievements.

• 2018/19 / Jonathan, Jake, Tom and Emmanuel (launched our award winning B.A.M.E. Ambassador scheme, negotiated an emergency bed scheme for NHS placement students valid at 26 HOST properties across the UK, ran the first ever HudPride event, pioneered the Ask for Angela scheme in Huddersfield, launched Broaden my Bookshelf campaign, lobbied for an external review of sport.)   
• 2019/20 / Emmanuel, Lucy, Adesewa, Adetayo and Bethany (Lobbying for additional measures to be put in place to support students during the Covid-19 pandemic, including a Student Safety Net Policy after 777 students liked the Big Idea, Lobbying the Government to ban the use of Essay Mills, Increased the number of bike sheds in campus, Led campus safety walks to find ways to make campus safer at night, University Sports and Activity Board formed.)    
•  2020/21 / Adetayo, Lucy, Tom, Bethany and Nurin (Gave out food parcels to students who were isolating from Covid-19, embedded allyship and EDI in the Global Professional Award, launched a climate emergency with the university, embedded student feedback in the development of the Jo Cox Centre)      
• 2021/22 / Nat, Millie, Chido, Sadaf and Meg (secured more funding for Union Sports Clubs, created an inclusivity checklist for Academic Reps to review their curriculum produced resources to support your employability, launched class and social mobility network, Collaborating with the University to launch Turnitin Draft Functionality for all students) 
• 2022/23 / Millie, Taha, Sarah, Katie and Elze (improved campus accessibility, support in place for cost of living crisis – increased hardship fund and launched Eco Eats, and lobbied for free menstrual products on campus, introduced Latte Levy and launched Too Good to Go)