This year’s Social Mobility Awareness Day theme, Stories Matter, reminds us that progress in social mobility begins by sharing stories. The University’s Social Mobility Network exists to ensure that these stories do not remain individual or isolated. Drawing together staff and students with lived experiences shaped by economic constraints such as insecure employment, limited income, and restricted access to resources, the Network creates space for shared reflection, mutual support, and – crucially – meaningful influence on policy, practice, and culture across the institution.
Since its inception in 2021, the Social Mobility Network has worked to ensure that individuals from working-class backgrounds, including first-generation students who are often pioneering access to higher education or professional careers within their families, alongside others from diverse socio-economic and cultural contexts, are not only acknowledged, but made visible and celebrated across the University. Through a multitude of events and campaigns, the Network has created spaces where stories of social mobility are shared – helping members feel seen, represented, and valued within an institutional context where such experiences have often been under‑recognised.
Initiatives such as the Class Ceiling Exhibition, which featured in the John Hansard Gallery, have brought personal narratives into the wider community as well as into university spaces, using visual storytelling to prompt reflection and conversation about class, identity, and belonging. The First in Family talks provided opportunities for staff and students to share their journeys into and through higher education, highlighting both the challenges faced and the resilience developed along the way. Meanwhile, the Class Ceiling podcast has extended these conversations beyond physical spaces, offering an accessible platform for lived experience to reach a wider audience and challenge assumptions about who universities are for.
Additionally, The Network’s commitment to ensuring that conversations about social class and mobility continue have been demonstrated through events such as the Top of the Class conference, where invited speakers including, Joint University of Southampton Chancellor, Rt Hon Justine Greening have situated personal experience within wider national conversations about access, opportunity, and social mobility.
Alongside creating visibility and community, the Network’s work has gained recognition both within and beyond the institution, reflecting the impact of centering lived experience in social mobility work. The University of Southampton was awarded Gold and Highly Commended at the Social Mobility Awards (SOMO) for two consecutive years in 2022 and 2023, in which the Network featured as a central part of these submissions, and was also a finalist in the Public Good and Social Mobility category at the Vice‑Chancellor’s Awards in 2023. These acknowledgements reinforce the importance of the Network’s approach – demonstrating that when stories are taken seriously, they can inform meaningful cultural and structural change.
You can help us continue these conversations by joining us on Social Mobility Day for our Conversation Corner, 2-3pm, 11th June, Highfield Campus. Conversation Corner is a new activity from the Social Mobility Network, designed to bring together staff and PGR students who identify as being from, or having grown up in, a low socioeconomic background. It provides a space to reflect on shared themes around identity, background, and social mobility.
Led by trained facilitators from within the Network, Conversation Corner will be a welcoming, supportive space to share experiences and connect with others through meaningful conversation to foster understanding, empathy, and connection across our community.
You can sign up via the Microsoft Form here.
The Network is in a period of development with exciting initiatives to come in 2026/27. We want to hear from members as to what you’d like to see. Join our Network Team’s group and follow our social media channels to keep up to date with activities and to get involved!
Teams group- General | Social Mobility Network
Instagram- Uni of Southampton’s Social Mobility Network (@soton_smn) • Instagram photos and videos
LinkedIn- The Social Mobility Network
You Make Change Updates
You Make Change update: Thank you as always for your ideas and queries. We look forward to receiving more submissions in the next two weeks!
