Part Three

People, power and voice

When the whole world is silent, even one voice becomes powerful.

Malala Yousafzai, Gen Z student and education campaigner

New power is about people – how they relate, how they connect and how they come together to create social change. The New Power University is made from three constituencies of people: the students, the staff and the community within which it resides, physically and virtually.

It is through understanding these groups of people, their motivations, concerns and ambitions, that their individual and collective power and voice can be mobilised to shape both the social purpose of the New Power University and wider society.

But to deliver on that social purpose, the New Power University will need to listen and think carefully about its relationship with students, staff and communities. It will be transformed through this listening, exploring new ways of organising itself – some radical and controversial – as well as adopting a range of novel practices, including shorter-term conditional affiliations, open and transparent collaboration and participation, and a degree of self-organisation and a ‘maker culture’: all shaped by the people who make up the New Power University.