Student volunteering

Becoming the European Green Capital offers an opportunity for Higher Education (HE) institutions to support their cities in releasing the full potential of the Green Capital accolade, however HE’s involvement in previous Green Capitals has been limited. The Green Capital: Student Capital project has aimed to change this by putting students at the heart of Bristol’s European Green Capital 2015 year, encouraging and facilitating student engagement in a wide range of both curricular and extra-curricular placement and volunteering activities with a Green Capital focus.
The University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) and the University of Bristol – with their respective students’ unions – have been working in partnership with the city and local communities, using Higher Education Funding Council for England Catalyst funding to promote student involvement in Green Capital activities across Greater Bristol.

Student Capital created a broad programme of citywide impact during European Green Capital. It delivered a programme of student and staff engagement in enhancing sustainability within the city and has developed student and staff engagement with sustainability action.

Through action research approaches it is also providing lessons for how institutions can collaborate across cities and communities to have internal and external impacts for sustainability.

The project has been uniquely timed to explore this in the context of Bristol Green Capital 2015, the first UK city to achieve this designation, and in which the two Universities have already been instrumental in developing and sustaining the Bristol Green Capital Partnership of over 850 organisations.

This paper is devoted to the problem of engaging youth in the formation of sustainable urban environment.
A particular focus is on the role of universities as research and educational centres in this process. The problem was
analyzed from two perspectives. On the one hand, an analysis was carried out to assess the activity of students as the
actors contributing to the formation of urban environment, as well as the level of their involvement in constructive social
practices and readiness for social and cultural participation in urban life. On the other hand, specifi c institutional and
socio-cultural features of urban environment, which determine the social activity of youth, were investigated. Russia
and Poland were selected as the objects of analysis, mainly because these countries share a common socio-cultural, ideological
and historical heritage. The research methodology involved a secondary analysis of published data and a survey
among Russian and Polish university students. The respondents were selected using the method of targeted sampling and
included 465 and 248 respondents from Russia and Poland, respectively. As a result, a number of differences between the
countries were identifi ed. In Poland, a shift towards non-formalised social practices and non-institutionalised forms of
participation is evident. Russia, however, shows the opposite trend, which involves formalisation and bureaucratisation
of youth social participation through centralisation of programmes and projects, as well as unifi cation of approaches
used to encourage youth activity. Polish youth demonstrates a higher social activity and a higher level of trust in NPOs,
as well as orientation towards democratic values. For Russian students, a submissive position with respect to the city
authorities as the main subject of urban development was found to be more typical. Although, in general, Russian and
Polish students demonstrate similar patterns of participation in urban development, the former are more focused on its
collective forms, while the latter are oriented at individualisation. The obtained results provide for a deeper understanding
of the nature of youth participation in the socio-cultural development of cities. Our fi ndings can be used in practice
for the development of university strategies aimed at promotion of student social engagement.
Keywords: social participation, social engagement, student volunteering, social partnership, third mission of universities,
urban cultural policy, urban development