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Wonkhe SUs · The 2026 webinar box set

Getting the relationship right

How to handle the SU/university partnership in tough times.

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We ask what a healthy SU–university relationship looks like when financial pressure means interests stop lining up neatly. We examine the partnership model SUs built over a decade, the "seat at the table versus megaphone" dilemma, the funder problem and "managed consent", and how to hardwire independence and influence into the relationship through risk registers, trigger clauses and a rights infrastructure.

What we cover

  • Where we are – relationships built in good times and tested in bad ones, with big changes landing on students with little warning.
  • What we built – a decade optimised for partnership, and why that model struggles when resource is tight.
  • Table or megaphone? – the dark side of the seat at the table, and the "pincer movement" of pressure outside plus allies inside.
  • Managed consent – the warning signs of capture, and the test: if partnership only survives when students stay quiet, it isn't partnership.
  • The funder problem – SUs as charities whose dominant funder is the body they exist to hold to account.
  • Who pays, decides? – how money quietly defines what counts as "in students' interests".
  • Tree rings and risk – how risk now dominates decisions, and the SU's job of maximising the perception of risk.
  • The cycle of silence – normalisation drift, impression management and double silencing.
  • Policing promises – shifting from "we're in the room" to "we make broken promises costly", using consumer rights and C6.
  • Hardwire it – trigger clauses, reporting direct to Council, a students' rights charter, and "no surprises, no vetoes".

Things to read

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