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Our agreement

Led by Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ, this Civic University Agreement sets out a connected vision for how we will work with partners to make our local area a better and more equitable place. This means further integrating social value and innovation into the core of what we do as a university. We are determined to unlock the full potential of our teaching, research, knowledge exchange, workforce and estate, as well as our cultural offer, to make a transformative impact in Lewisham, South East London and beyond.  

Goldsmiths brings significant social, economic and cultural benefits to South East London.  A knowledge and culture hub for our borough and region, we are deeply invested in co-producing world-class education, research and culture with the communities around us. Analysis has shown that the university contributes around £93m annually in Gross Value Added (GVA), supporting a wide ecosystem of jobs and local businesses. Our work with local schools reaches thousands of young people each year, giving them an insight into university life. Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ also contributes to the area through a range of cultural and engagement initiatives, through its groundbreaking research and through its graduates and alumni, many of whom settle locally. According to analysis by Novuna conducted in 2023, Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ is the UK university with the fourth highest proportion of graduates starting their own business. Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ also helps to bring the world to Lewisham, welcoming scholars and students from across the globe each year. These staff and students are active citizens and valued members of our global/local community.

The London Growth Plan notes that ‘London’s universities and research institutes produce discoveries and inventions that change the world’. Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ is no exception, with our research and knowledge exchange generating societal impact across our strength areas in the arts, humanities, social sciences and computing. In 2027 Goldsmiths will be opening a new learning space in Catford, working closely in partnership with Lewisham Council to bring new energy and opportunities to this part of the borough. Alongside our partners in this Civic University Agreement, we are committed to working on a shared vision aimed at improving the lives of those living, working, learning and visiting our local area. We are proud to be based in one of the most diverse, vibrant and culturally rich parts of London and we are proud to be working to further unlock the potential of our area and the people who live, work and study there. Our overarching aim is to co-create better places that allow people to thrive and fulfil their full potential: nurturing empathy, community and belonging. In doing so, our work will also reflect commitments to equality, diversity, and social and environmental justice.  

The Vision 

Our vision draws on shared principles across the partnership and on Goldsmiths’ approach to civic responsibilities and engagement. Working strategically and in partnerships, we aim to play our maximum possible role in co-creating Lewisham, South East London as an economically vibrant, socially inclusive, culturally rich and diverse place – making our area a better place to live, work, visit and study and creating the conditions in which more people can thrive. 

Our priority areas for focusing this work are: 

1. Inclusive education and opportunity for life 
2. Shared prosperity, jobs and fair growth 
3. Culture, community and belonging 
4. Climate action, sustainability and good health  

Geographic Reach 

The CUA will focus on our immediate shared civic context: the London Borough of Lewisham. Our underpinning aim is to improve lives and make this immediate local context a better place to live, work, visit and study. Whilst keeping our focus on Lewisham, we will also explore opportunities to work with a wider network of partners and communities across Southeast London, Greater London and the South East. Our focus will be local, but we will draw on ideas, networks and perspectives from across the nation and indeed across the globe as we seek to make our area a better place. Our collaboration with Future Arts Centres, a national network of over 180 arts centres across the UK, will help us to achieve this broader perspective.  We will align with regional and national strategies for growth and development as well the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

The partners

Associate members 

In addition to the core partners above, we are delighted to launch this refreshed CUA in association with Future Arts Centres, a network of over 180 arts centres across the UK. This partnership with Future Arts Centres will help us to align our local civic work with a national perspective, exploring how our work in South East London resonates with issues impacting towns and cities right across the UK.  

Future Arts Centres is a UK network that champions the unique importance of arts centres at a local, regional and national level. The network advocates that, by offering outstanding artistic experiences for everyone in our communities and by operating as robust social enterprises, arts centres present a fantastic model for the cultural venues of tomorrow.  

As our CUA progresses, we will seek opportunities for wider collaboration and to bring a wider range of regional perspectives into our conversation – fostering links to regional, national and international perspectives.

Objective Area 1:
Inclusive education and opportunities for life

Education is the bedrock on which fairer societies are built. Access to a rich, diverse and fulfilling education – including the opportunity to keep learning and re-skilling throughout your life – is a fundamental right that everyone should have access to. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals challenge us to ‘ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all’. We mean to rise to this challenge, playing our maximum possible role in ensuring that people in our area can fulfil their full potential in life and helping them to develop the skills that they need to thrive. Through outreach and widening participation initiatives, equity-focused education, work placements and skills programmes across disciplines, we will work to address some of the structural inequalities that affect people’s life chances, making social mobility a cornerstone of our approach to social innovation.  

Lewisham and South East London offer a rich and inspiring context within which to learn. This is already an area of notable educational attainment, with higher than national average participation and progression rates. It is home to great schools and colleges, inspiring cultural institutions and leading universities. Nonetheless, not everyone is able to benefit from this learning environment. Inequality remains a significant issue, particularly in some of the digital, creative and cultural sectors which will shape the economies and jobs of the future.  There is evidence of a decline in numbers of young people from ethnically diverse and less economically advantaged backgrounds choosing to study subjects in the creative arts and humanities. This impacts progression into associated careers. We are committed to working with partners to do all that we can to redress this, ensuring that people can make education choices that match their hopes, aspirations and ambitions. 

The London Growth Plan notes that ‘London’s universities lead the UK on social mobility’. At Goldsmiths, we recognise our role as part of a wider higher education sector seeking to ensure that people from all backgrounds receive the support they need to navigate a path to and through higher education and into rewarding lives and careers. Alongside fee waivers and bursaries, we run a range of initiatives such as summer schools, taster days and mentoring programmes which help to demystify university life and offer openings into higher education. Our Goldsmiths Equity Awards provide financial and individualised educational support to Global Ethnic Majority students to offset systemic inequality. Initiatives such as Alchemy, a creative music making and mentoring programme, and our Schools Studio Programme, which provides mentorship to 16-18 year olds in local schools and colleges, demonstrate our commitment to working in partnership with schools, colleges and young people in the area. Our stewardship of Arts Council England’s national Artsmark accreditation scheme gives us unique insight into the importance of creative education in schools.  

Objective Area 2:
Shared prosperity, decent jobs and fair growth

Lewisham and South East London have a diverse and vibrant local economy, centred on independent businesses and SMEs. Lewisham itself is home to one of the Mayor of London’s first Creative Enterprise Zones – a recognition of the extraordinary cluster of creative businesses and entrepreneurs based in the borough. As the Inclusive Economy Lewisham Strategy notes, 20% of Lewisham’s businesses are in the creative, cultural, and digital sectors. A significant proportion of these have links to Goldsmiths. Lewisham and South East London are also undergoing significant regeneration, with improving transport links, developments and infrastructure projects driving inward investment and encouraging more people to visit, live, work and study in the area.    

There is much to celebrate. However, recent years have also brought challenges. As we continue to recover from the shocks of the global pandemic, the Cost-of-Living-Crisis and Brexit, partnership is more important than ever. We have a shared responsibility to strive towards the UN’s Development Goal of â€˜promoting sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all’.  

In our local area and beyond, there are challenges to achieving this. In 2025, Lewisham ranked within the 20% most deprived local authorities in England and the 7th most deprived borough in the capital. Goldsmiths itself sits in New Cross, which Lewisham Council’s Inclusive Economy Lewisham strategy calls one of Lewisham’s most ‘challenged areas in terms of poverty, barriers to prosperity, and lack of economic opportunity’. Across our borough and across South East London, economic inequality is a major issue. Pockets of wealth and poverty sit side by side, and there are many in our communities who do not benefit from the affluence that exists close to them. The world of work is itself also changing rapidly. As the 2025 London Growth Plan notes, ‘the transformation of work including flexible working, artificial intelligence and the gig economy’ are rapidly reshaping the world of work and the fabric of our cities. 

We are already rising to these challenges. Lewisham’s third largest employer, Goldsmiths has been an accredited London Living Wage Employer since 2016.  The university boosts the local economy, providing good quality jobs, supporting local business and acting as an engine of fair and inclusive local growth, supporting regeneration and innovation for Lewisham and South East London. Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ is also working with Lewisham Council to develop a new student learning space in Catford, in the south of the borough. Demonstrating the power of partnership, this represents a major investment in Catford’s future â€“ with around 600 students bringing new energy and footfall to the town centre and a boost for local businesses. 

Goldsmiths runs a student staff programme providing students with local well-paid flexible work at above London Living Wage. We host regular Meet the Buyer events to help local small businesses make procurement links to large public sector organisations and the university has also developed a portfolio of business support programmes which bring together expertise from across Goldsmiths to provide creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation that supports local business and SMEs. These programmes have supported over 700 businesses locally over the past three years.  

Working with initiatives such as the Lewisham Strategic Partnership, Lewisham Creative Enterprise Zone and the Thames Estuary Production Corridor, we will continue to unlock the full benefits of our university as an ethical employer and anchor for regional growth, innovation and entrepreneurship, supporting a thriving and inclusive local economy. 

Objective Area 3:
Culture, community and belonging

In 2022, Lewisham was London’s Borough of Culture. A year-long programme of cultural activity built on the borough’s well-established reputation as a place of cultural and creative radicalism, reaching more than 400,000 people and leaving a significant legacy. South East London is increasingly noted as a cultural and creative hub. Lewisham boasts a number of notable cultural organisations, from the Horniman Museum to Trinity Laban and the Albany and Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ itself. Local festivals such as Deptford X and the Catford Arts Trail help to illuminate the creative scene and bring art and culture to the streets. Across the wider region, too, art and culture is flourishing. South East London incorporates everything from the creative hotbed of Peckham to Greenwich’s museums and heritage sites and Design District. The cultural and creative sector is transforming the way that we think about whole areas of the city and is often at the leading edge of making them better places to live, work and visit. 

Culture can help improve our sense of wellbeing and help to foster deeper and richer encounters with place, community, heritage and belonging. It can also provide a means to ask critical questions and to drive social and political action: acting as a catalyst to change society for the better. Building on the legacies of Lewisham’s year as London Borough of Culture as well as initiatives such as our new learning space in Catford we will continue to support and celebrate the diverse communities, heritage and cultures of our area, with a particular focus on social justice, race justice, and decolonising. We will support pan-London initiatives such as the Greater London Authority’s work on Diversity in the Public Realm and work together on projects that foster ethical placemaking, pride in place and heritage-led regeneration.  

One of London’s most proudly diverse and multicultural areas, Lewisham is also the first London borough to be awarded the title of Borough of Sanctuary. The signatories to this agreement are exploring how together we might contribute yet further to the campaigns and initiatives aimed at supporting this initiative and unlocking the true potential of our area as a space of sanctuary and welcome. In a climate of hostile political rhetoric around migration, we will work to ensure that our civic context is one that supports people, values their contributions and allows them to thrive, whatever their background or geographic point of origin.  

Objective Area 4:
Climate action, sustainability and good health

The Climate Emergency is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. As we see our planet change around us and strive for more sustainable and regenerative ways of living, we become aware of a responsibility to create a world and environment that fosters sustainable health and wellbeing. The actions that we take today are essential to shaping the ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’ called for by the UN Sustainable Development Goals and creating a liveable world for generations to come.  

Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ is working to address the challenges of the climate and nature emergency. Alongside efforts to decarbonise our estate, our research and knowledge exchange activities in recent years have included major projects on behaviour change and sustainable travel, explorations of the intersections of human and ‘more-than-human’ communities and studies of environmental crime and airborne violence. Changes to our curriculum have seen the climate crisis deeply embedded in the educational experience of students at Goldsmiths. With our partners, we will continue to work to create healthier and more sustainable futures: reducing our emissions, protecting biodiversity and green and blue infrastructure, offsetting the impacts of global heating and building the climate and nature crisis into curricula and education programmes and helping to influence behaviour change, inform and empower communities to make change happen. 

The impacts of climate change are not experienced equally. They are closely linked to wider social inequalities, including health inequalities. The Birmingham and Lewisham African and Caribbean Health Inequalities Review (BLACHIR) report has explored health inequality as a driver of poor health outcomes both locally and further afield. This has in turn informed strategic action to address these issues, with a focus on prevention and holistic good health awareness. Food Justice is a key focus, and partners in Lewisham are working to ensure that as many people as possible can enjoy reliable and fair access to food that is sufficiently nutritious, sustainable, culturally appropriate and affordable, whilst also having opportunity to grow, prepare, cook, eat and share food with their families and communities.  

Among the health challenges facing us, mental health is a major area of concern. Recent years have seen a surge in people reporting mental health challenges and making use of services in this area.  This is particularly true of young people and the people most impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns. The London Growth Plan notes that ‘poor health, including mental health, is keeping growing numbers of (particularly younger) Londoners out of work’. Many in our local communities are impacted by social isolation and associated impacts on mental health, including students. We are already working to address these issues - supporting a range of initiatives that help to foster good physical and mental health. Ó£ÌÒÊÓƵ is collaborating with Phoenix Community Housing on a pioneering intergenerational housing initiative, Melfield Gardens, which sees students living alongside older Phoenix residents in a new development built to Passivhaus ecological standards in the south of Lewisham. We are also piloting Wellbeing Clinics aimed at connecting staff and student expertise at the university to local mental health needs.