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Member of staff? Add your Reps below!
Guidance and Information
| Milestone | Date (2026) |
|---|---|
| Recruitment of Academic Reps | Monday 28 September to Friday 23 October |
| Online Training for Academic Reps begins | Monday 28 September |
| Course Rep and Lead Department Reps to be recruited & submitted via the Union website | Friday 23 October |
| Faculty Representative to be elected through the Union | Friday 23 October |
| Faculty/Lead Department Rep training | Monday 26 October - Friday 13 November |
| Faculty Representatives details to be sent to the Faculties | Monday 26 October |
| Faculty Welcomes | Monday 2 November - Friday 13 November |
Online Submission Guidance
Returning Academic Rep details is now submitted online through the Union website. This should be submitted by programme and department staff. Please ensure you have the student’s Full Name and UCL email address available for the SPC they are joining. This is all of the information required to return your reps.
The returns data will automatically publish reps on the ‘Find Your Rep’ webpage so students and staff can find who the academic reps are in their department and Faculty as soon as they are returned. Department and Faculty colleagues can also use this to see which reps have been returned.
This streamlined approach should reduce the workload for staff and provide an easier way to check which reps have been returned. If you have any questions or comments please get in touch with us at [email protected]
Adding Reps - FAQs:
- Choosing the correct SPC:
1. Please make sure you add your Reps to the correct SPC and NOT to their faculty or department.
2. Please also be aware that the default SPC option is Arts and Humanities, which always has to be changed.
3. If you cannot find your SPC in the dropdown list, please contact us at [email protected]. We get the list of SPCs for each year from UCL Academic Services, and if your SPC is not on this list, it will not be added to our website.- Choosing the correct Rep type:
1. Course Reps represent their student cohort on a course level, for taught undergraduate or taught postgraduate degrees.
2. Research Reps represent their student cohort on a research degree level, for postgraduate research degrees.
3. Lead Department Reps are usually (but not always) one of the Course Reps or Research Reps, and represent their cohort on a departmental level. Lead Department Reps usually attend Departmental Teaching Committee meetings as well. There is usually only one Lead Department Rep per department.
4. Faculty Reps are elected centrally through the SU website, and represent all students in their faculty at their study level (UG, PGT or PGR). Faculty Reps are normally added to the website by us.- Why can I not add a student as a Rep?
This issue usually arises because the student has opted out of Union membership and are therefore not on our database, so you will need to get the student to join the Union. please direct the student to https://studentsunionucl.org/forms/opt-in-to-union-membership, and they should be able to opt in again. It might take a few days for our systems to update so you might not be able to add the student as a Rep immediately after they opted in.
If the issue is still present after a week of the student having opted in, please contact us at [email protected].- We haven’t been able to recruit any Course Reps/Lead Department Reps/Faculty Reps, what can we do?
If the SPCs have at least one student Rep each, in theory the meetings should be able to continue going ahead as normal. Whilst Academic Reps are generally elected around the time of the autumn elections, they can be elected or appointed at any time in the year. If the department is having persistent issues in recruiting Reps, please contact us at [email protected].
- Can you (the SU) add our Reps for us?
Generally we avoid doing this, as across UCL we are likely to have up to 2,000 Academic Reps and so it would be unmanageable for us to manually add all of these onto our database. We ask that staff members upload their own Reps.
- Can I bulk import Reps?
Unfortunately, this is beyond our website's capacity at the moment, so you need to add each of your Reps manually as described in the video.
Staff Guide to Student Academic Representation 2026-27
The Staff Guide provides information and guidance on what Academic Reps do, why we have Student Academic Representation, key dates, key contacts, and responsibilities. It sets out in detail what is required from staff, but also provides guidance on improving and enhancing student representation. This may be particularly helpful for new staff, those who may need a refresher, or to refer back to throughout the year for all staff members.
Student Academic Representation Benchmarking Tool
This benchmarking tool helps to identify the progress being made on developing student academic representation at both a local and an institutional level.
Academic Manual Guidance
Section 6: Student Academic Representation - Link
SPC Agenda and Minutes Template (Please search for Annex 9.6.1) - Link
Election Resources
These resources will support department and programme staff to facilitate Course and Department Rep Elections. The Academic Reps Election process document provides a step-by-step guide which all staff should follow for a successful and efficient election.
Voting Ballots for Electronic Elections
We recommend the use of Microsoft Forms, Doodle or Slido to facilitate your elections. Staff can create a duplicate of this Microsoft Form voting ballot template and adapt as appropriate for their local context.
Alternatively, the Choice Module in Moodle is also suitable for this purpose.
Ballot, candidate nomination form, and count sheet for in-person Elections
Promotional Resources
We make available a variety of resources which you can use to help promote Student Academic Representation within your department.
Slides are available below through PDFs and PowerPoints - a shorter version which focuses on the role of Academic Reps for staff to use to help them promote the roles during elections, and a longer version providing a full overview of the Union.
Once you have completed your Academic Rep elections, you can download and edit this PowerPoint template to introduce the newly elected reps to students on the cohort.
Videos
Posters
Faculty Rep Opportunity Template Email
Digital Screen Advertisement
Email Signature Banner
Promotional Video
Our promotional video outlines the key benefits to being a Course or Research Student Representative and what is involved. Its less than 5 minutes long, and prompts the department or programme to briefly outline how representatives will be appointed locally - Youtube link / Download link
Role Descriptors
These role descriptors are aimed at both students and staff, highlighting key responsibilities and the time commitment required for each Academic Representative role.
Departmental Societies information
If you come across students interested in developing vibrant and inclusive communities, you can point them towards Departmental Societies!
Annual Reports
Academic Representation Annual Reports - our annual report on progress with developing effective academic representation at UCL. Click the links below to read our reports since 2020.
You can view the Union's latest research projects here.
Contact
Have a question? Email [email protected]