Alumni Survey 2023 results
Your views on how we can best serve our alumni community, and what you want from your university, are very much valued by us.
The 2023 Alumni Survey was sent out in June 2023, with 3,819 alumni spanning 7 generations taking part. Respondents were based all around the world, from the UK and Europe to North America and Asia. Overall, the demographics of the respondents were representative of our 250,000-strong alumni community.
In the below blog, you can read a summary of the results from the survey and the changes we will be implementing to improve your experience with Newcastle University.
Key statistics
- 91% of alumni feel proud to be a Newcastle University graduate.
- 72% of graduates are interested in what is going on at Newcastle University today.
- 4 in 5 alumni are open to supporting Newcastle University in the future, particularly as a volunteer.
What you said about your alumni benefits
All graduates - whether they graduated in 1963 or 2023 - can access a range of benefits from Newcastle University. This includes social opportunities such as events and reunions, career progression and lifelong learning.
Awareness of our current alumni benefits has improved since our last survey was conducted in 2020, and interest in engaging with these alumni benefits has also risen. However, there is still a large proportion of alumni who are unaware of the benefits available to them and how they can be accessed.
Respondents told us that the benefits that were most important to them were online access to university libraries, exclusive alumni discounts and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) courses. There was also a high proportion of respondents interested in joining and/or starting an alumni network.
How we will improve your alumni benefits
To improve awareness, we will be making a more concerted effort to highlight alumni benefits across all our communications channels, particularly spotlighting the alumni benefits that are most important to you (as detailed above).
Longer term, we will look at enhancing our alumni benefits to include more exclusive access and discounts to various businesses and facilities within Newcastle and beyond.
What you said about alumni events
There is a keen interest across our alumni community to attend a range of event types, however, the survey has identified some potential barriers that prevent graduates from attending. These include not knowing anyone else who attends and a lack of knowledge around what is on.
Respondents expressed an interest in attending events on campus, but still see value in running virtual events.
Topics that were raised as particularly of interest for future events include the future of technology, sustainability and health and wellbeing.
How we will improve alumni events
We were grateful to learn that topics we have previously covered were still of interest to alumni and will continue to offer events and activities on these favoured topics throughout the year. As many of our events have been held virtually over the past couple of years, graduates can also catch up on recordings of previous events via our YouTube channel.
We will also ensure our events programme continues to cover a range of different event types and locations to suit our entire community.
Currently, we send a bi-monthly email summarising all events open to alumni. If you don’t already receive this communication and would like to, please update your details and contact preferences.
We will also be increasing the coverage of events on our social media channels (primarily LinkedIn) to keep alumni informed.
To improve the experience of in-person event registrants, who may be nervous about attending an event without knowing who will also be there, we will begin publishing a full list of registrants via email at least a week before the event takes place.
What you said about how we communicate with you
It was lovely to see that almost three-quarters of respondents still have an active interest in what is going on at Newcastle University today. You told us that you like to hear news from us via email primarily, but are also interested in keeping in touch via LinkedIn and Instagram. Most feel that monthly or quarterly communications would best serve them.
How we will improve our alumni communications
More of you are favouring social media over email communications, compared to our 2020 survey results, so we will increase activity on our private LinkedIn group for alumni, while continuing to develop our bi-monthly e-newsletter Arches.
If you’re not already hearing from us via email, please update your details and communication preferences. You can also join our LinkedIn group, or follow us on Instagram, X and Facebook.
What you said about giving back to Newcastle University
It was heart-warming to hear that 80% of respondents were interested in supporting Newcastle University in the future. The majority were most open to giving back their time and expertise as a volunteer, with a particular appetite for taking part in research projects, mentoring and being a guest speaker or lecturer.
Since the 2020 survey, we have launched the Campaign for Newcastle University – our first institution-wide philanthropic campaign. While awareness of the Campaign is lower than we hoped amongst alumni, reassuringly 3 in 4 respondents were open to hearing more about the initiative.
You also told us that you were more likely to leave a gift in your Will to Newcastle University compared to donating right now and would like to receive more information about how to do so.
How we will improve opportunities to give back
To provide a better experience for alumni willing to give back, we will be enhancing our volunteering programmes – providing a wider range of opportunities and improving awareness of these across all communication channels.
If you are interested in volunteering, please update your communication preferences via this short form or email alumni.volunteer@ncl.ac.uk to find out more about what is involved.
We will also strive to increase awareness of the Campaign themes, with a particular focus on the themes of Future Technology, Health and Wellbeing and Our Shared Planet (which were highlighted by respondents as the themes of most interest). And to inform those interested in leaving a legacy, we will develop our legacy fundraising programme and improve guidance on how to support Newcastle University in your Will.
Thank you for sharing your views
Thank you again to everyone who took part in this year’s Alumni Survey. We are really grateful for your time, your patience and your insight.