Education Space programme

Cockcroft Lecture Theatre

The Education Space Programme focuses on optimising the use of existing education facilities (both for teaching and examinations) to meet current needs whilst preparing for the future. 

The programme is committed to supporting the University’s academic mission by creating world-class environments for teaching, learning and assessments that are well used. To achieve this, the programme seeks to develop an understanding of how existing education spaces are utilised, enhancing the use of current facilities and identify targeted improvements that will benefit both staff and students. 

The programme is focused on meeting the needs of today and looking to the future. The programme is currently focused on the first part which involves the following:   

  • Achieve greater visibility of education space data across all Schools, including locally used systems, to accurately assess supply and demand across the University. 
  • Improve the University’s ability to support digital assessment where required.
  • Increase and improve the University’s access to examination space.
  • Undertake a University-wide and strategic approach to the development and introduction of new systems and processes related to education space utilisation and planning.
  • Understand the baseline facts and improve access to information on education space for staff, students and decision makers (on condition, accessibility, AV/IT provision and support) via audits, reporting.

The Programme Board for Education Space

The Education Space programme reports to the Programme Board for Education Space (PBES) which was established by the General Board in 2017. 

PBES, is accountable to the General Board, and reports to the Planning and Resources Committee (PRC) and, is fully aligned with the Reshaping our Estate programme. It supports the delivery of the vision for the education estate whilst also ensuring initiatives proposed by Schools, Faculties and Departments support the strategic education needs of the University. 

The PBES vision is: 

To develop an estate that consistently enables world-class teaching, learning, and examination facilities for staff and students - facilities that are inspiring, sustainable, accessible, adaptable, and efficiently utilised, meeting the needs of today and the future.

"A world-class university needs high-quality, accessible teaching and learning spaces. Exceptional education facilities help us attract the very best students and academics, and they improve the experience of those using them. High quality spaces also facilitate innovative teaching practices and encourage encounters between people across all disciplines, which is vital to our academic mission." - Professor Bhaskar Vira, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education  

Since 2017, PBES has championed a range of successful initiatives to:

  • Understand the volume, location and standard of education space across the estate.
  • Improve the quality of many centrally managed education spaces.
  • Support improvements to services and systems and increased the use of centrally managed education spaces.
  • Establish estates standards of performance and quality of education spaces.

These standards have informed an audit of a subset of existing facilities and subsequent schedule of improvement works (improvements to the Law Lecture Theatres, Biffen Lecture Theatre, Cockcroft Lecture Theatre and Sidgwick Lecture Block). A second tranche of improvement works is planned to meet needs highlighted by Schools (PRC funded).

Contact us
If you have a question about the Education Space programme, please contact the Reshaping our Estate team at: ReshapingourEstate@admin.cam.ac.uk

Note: The University’s General Board agreed a formal Education Space programme within Reshaping our Estate, noting the importance of education space.