Are you a VCSE seeking support from a research student?
In 2025, Compass Wellbeing is once again partnering with Students’ Union UCL Community Research Initiative to connect Voluntary and Community Sector Organisations with dedicated student researchers. These students can help you gather insights and data to inform your strategy, programme design, evaluation, or research efforts.
You have the opportunity to host one or more student volunteers who will contribute their research time to support your work.
If you are interested, please complete the expression of interest form below.
Our Offers
Engaged Masters
Dissertations
Research
Volunteering
Challenge-based volunteering
Bespoke support for grassroots orgs
Engaged Dissertation
A master’s student will collaborate with you on a research project aligned with both your needs and their academic interests. In addition to their dissertation (typically 10,000–20,000 words), they will create a community-focused output, such as a presentation, report, policy briefing, or grant application contribution, to directly support your work.
Research volunteering
A team of 2–4 student volunteers will support you over 2–3 months, applying their research skills to various stages of a research, evaluation, or scoping project. Their tasks may include designing frameworks, conducting reviews, collecting and analyzing data, and reporting findings. They can also work with existing data to help extract insights and present results.
Challenge-based volunteering
Students’ Union UCL’s Social Impact Hackathon is a one-day event where students collaborate to develop innovative solutions for your organisation’s challenges. You’ll guide them on your work and needs, and they’ll brainstorm and refine ideas to deliver actionable outcomes.
Other ways we can help
Community hatchery
Small or grassroots organisations can receive tailored one-on-one support to become research-ready and confident in partnerships. We’ll help demystify the research process and build your capacity to maximize our opportunities.
Community volunteering
Students’ Union UCL’s volunteering directory connects over 50,000 students with opportunities in London. As a registered partner, you can promote your roles and recruit volunteers through the platform.
If your organisation is interested in hosting a Students’ Union UCL student volunteer but does not yet have formal volunteering policies, we can support you in developing them. Our website provides useful resources and guidelines to help you establish best practices, safeguarding measures, and role structures.
Please find the relevant links below to assist you in creating a strong volunteering framework that benefits both your organisation and the volunteers.
Writing a volunteer policy
Government guidance
CES’s template agreement
Template policies
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🌟New Grants Available! 🌟
We're excited to announce grants ranging from £500 to £10,000 to support local community initiatives that make a significant impact. Projects should deliver against the following priorities of Education, Skills and Employment, and Wellbeing.
If your…
Our incredible Community Development Officers attended a remarkable event to honour our wonderful Voluntary and Community Groups and Individuals.
Fantastic Town Hall turnout for the VCS Awards & Summit to celebrate the work that our amazing Voluntary & Community groups and individuals do transforming local lives and communities #THVCSAwards25 look forward to sharing news on our winners!
@CompassWB @Mathew_Sheehan1 Very best of luck @Mathew_Sheehan1 - @CompassWB is a great organisation and I know they’re looking forward to your arrival! I’ve had an enjoyable last year as interim CEO.