SESSION OVERVIEW
At Aston University in the UK, every undergraduate student experiences Power Skills: a university-wide initiative designed to equip students with the capabilities needed to succeed in a rapidly changing world. Built around four key pillars – AI & Digital, Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Inclusive Leadership, and Environmental Sustainability – Power Skills provides a shared institutional language and a lens through which students can understand their studies, connect with others, and engage with the wider world around them.
Power Skills is intentionally designed to foster belonging at multiple levels. Through shared experiences embedded across every undergraduate degree, students develop connections with peers, build confidence in their own abilities, and strengthen their sense of belonging and identity as learners, contributors and future professionals. The framework helps students see themselves as part of a disciplinary community while simultaneously developing the knowledge, skills and perspectives needed to engage with diverse professional and societal communities beyond university.
Rather than existing as a standalone curriculum initiative, Power Skills is integrated flexibly across programmes and aligned with key points in the student journey, including transition into higher education, teamworking, and preparation for placement. This approach enables programme teams to embed future-focused capabilities without creating curriculum overload or requiring staff to become experts in new subject areas. Importantly, it supports students not only to participate in university life, but to contribute to it, creating opportunities for authentic learning, meaningful engagement and increased confidence through real-world application that draws on their lived experiences.
The initiative extends beyond the classroom through activities such as the Power Skills Festival and wider co-curricular opportunities, bringing students, staff, employers and external partners together around common themes and challenges. In doing so, Power Skills creates opportunities for connection, industry engagement and community building that strengthen both campus-based and digital communities. By connecting academic learning with wider institutional experiences through the language of a common framework, students are supported to develop a stronger sense of belonging during their studies while gaining the confidence and adaptability to thrive in the workplace and society after graduation. This reflects a broader view of belonging: not only belonging at university, but developing the confidence, capabilities and professional identity required to belong and thrive beyond graduation.
This session will share the strategic vision, development and implementation of Aston’s Power Skills initiative as a large-scale, cross-institutional change programme involving multiple stakeholders. Attendees will gain an understanding of how belonging can be embedded through institution-wide capability frameworks, practical approaches for integrating future-focused skills into existing student experiences without curriculum overload, and key lessons learned from implementing a university-wide initiative that strengthens connection, empowers contribution, and supports students to belong and thrive
both during university and beyond graduation.
Session Outcomes:
• Gain insights into how institution-wide capability frameworks can strengthen belonging, confidence and professional identity.
• Take away practical approaches for embedding future-focused skills within existing student experiences without creating curriculum overload.
• Learn key lessons from delivering a large-scale initiative that brought together academic and professional services colleagues around a shared vision.
• Explore how universities can support students to build the confidence and capabilities to connect, contribute and thrive both during university and beyond graduation.
PRESENTER
Chris Umfreville is Deputy Dean Education: Student Experience and Success at Aston University, UK, where he leads initiatives to enhance student success, belonging and engagement across the learner journey. Working collaboratively with academic and professional services colleagues, he has led and contributed to a range of institution-wide initiatives, including the development of Postgraduate Taught Block Teaching, the rollout of the Aston Global Advantage across postgraduate programmes, the implementation of Aston’s Power Skills framework across undergraduate provision, the development of Aston’s Personal Tutor Framework to strengthen student support and belonging, and the curriculum design and delivery of Aston London. A Principal Fellow of Advance HE (PFHEA), Chris’s work is underpinned by creating inclusive learning environments, strengthening student belonging, and developing practical approaches that prepare students to thrive both during university and beyond graduation.