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National Student Survey

The National Student Survey (NSS) 2024 will run at Queen Mary from 29 January to 30 April. The survey mostly covers final year undergraduates.

The National Student Survey (NSS) is a nationally recognised annual survey of final year undergraduates in the UK. Queen Mary has been participating in the NSS since 2005.

The survey provides students with an opportunity to give some honest feedback on your whole experience at Queen Mary - feedback that we will use to make improvements for students of the future. As it’s a national survey, it gives us, the public, and future students valuable insight into how we compare with other universities. The NSS also provides important information for prospective students to inform their choices about where they want to study. Queen Mary Students' Union is fully supportive of the NSS.

Alongside your elected representatives, feedback from Student-Staff Liaison Committees has been critical to making positive changes to your learning experience. Every year, we also make improvements to the student experience based on your feedback – see below for some examples.

Take the survey now

Help your School/Institute to win £500 

The School/Institute that gets the highest percentage of responses between 29 January and 16 February will receive £500 and can decide with their students what to do with it, from charity donations to graduation packages. 

Congratulations to the School of History who won in 2023 and decided to donate the money to charity! 

Claim your £5 Thank You Reward 

As a thank you for completing the survey, we want to offer every student who completes the NSS a £5 voucher redeemable at any Students’ Union outlet or the online shop: Qmotion Sport & Fitness Centre, Ground Café, Union Shop, Village Shop, Drapers Bar & Kitchen and The Griff. It can also be used for any Get Active sessions or exchanged for an event ticket at Drapers.  

To claim your voucher, complete this simple form where you’ll be asked to upload a screenshot of the confirmation email you receive on completion of the survey. You need to do this as your answers and comments to the survey remain anonymous. You will receive your voucher within 7 days.  

Alternatively, you can choose to donate your £5 reward to either a Society or Sports Club of your choice, or one of our student nominated charities for the 2023/24 academic year.  

Support Bow Foodbank

Community outreach work and engagement have always been intrinsic to what we do at Queen Mary. We want to take this opportunity to support the causes that matter to you. 

Your Students’ Union representatives were asked to help pick a charity on behalf of students, and this year we will be supporting Bow Foodbank. They were chosen as the cost of living is heavily impacting many students and it feels appropriate to acknowledge and support a foodbank in such hard times. They also won Partner Organisation of the Year at last year's Students' Union Volunteer Awards, so we appreciate their work!

You can help boost the University’s total charity donation by completing the survey and encouraging others to do so: 

  • On reaching a 50% completion rate for the survey, the University will donate £500 

  • At 60%, the University will donate a further £250 to a total of £750 

  • At 70% or more, the University will donate a further £250 to a total of £1,000. 

Why should you take part?

The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete online. We encourage you to complete the survey as soon as possible, because: 

  • The NSS provides you with the opportunity to provide honest, anonymous feedback on your whole learning experience.
  • Your opinions do matter and will help improve the experience of future students at Queen Mary, just as you have benefitted from previous students’ feedback.
  • The NSS is run by an independent market research company and all answers are anonymous.
  • The NSS is an opportunity to make your voice heard on a national platform.
  • Anonymised results are made publicly available through Discover Uni to help prospective students make informed decisions of where and what to study.
  • The Students' Union is supportive of the NSS.
As you know, we work hard at Queen Mary to ensure your voice is heard with respect to supporting your learning journey. And, importantly, we seek to address any issues you raise that impact on your day-to-day progress. This has been more important than ever following the unprecedented challenges we have all been facing. Please engage with the NSS - we really value your feedback, as it helps us to benchmark across the UK and make any further positive changes at Queen Mary.

You may opt out of the survey at any point.

What happens with the results?

The NSS results are made publicly available to help prospective students, their families and advisors make informed decisions of where and what to study. Universities and students’ unions also use the data to compare best practice. We identify areas of strengths and weaknesses to make changes and improve the learning experience for future generations who come to Queen Mary to study.

Data from previous surveys are available on Discover Uni. 

You can also view the results of the NSS at Queen Mary on our NSS results page. 

Investing in the student experience 

We continue to develop our facilities and services to improve the experience of all our students during their time at Queen Mary. Here are some recent highlights of what’s happening around Queen Mary. 

Investment on campus  

Investment in wellbeing  

  • Our partnerships with Togetherall and Health Assured have been developed to provide you with 24/7 wellbeing support and new wellbeing helpline to complement our inhouse services, including the Advice and Counselling Service, and the Disability and Dyslexia Service. 
  • Invested more than £50,000 in 2023/24 in student training and improving awareness of student support, as part of our commitment to tackling violence, harassment and hate crime on campus. We launched a new micro courses platform reaching out to 2,500 new students with our Harassment and Sexual misconduct on Campus course (September ’23). We are working with organisations like Beyond Equality and Solace to deliver campus workshops, challenging participants to be accountable for their actions and values, as well as for the values of our community. 
  • Queen Mary provides free period products from a number of locations on our campuses. We’re providing these products to support our students and staff with their menstrual health and reduce the impact of period poverty for our communities. 

Investment in resources and services  

  • £3.2m spent by Library Services on new subscriptions and e-resources to make more books, journals, databases and media in electronic formats available. 
  • Invested and upgraded to the latest cloud technologies to increase the accessibility and performance of QMplus, especially during exam periods. 
  • Improved reliability of lecture capture recordings using QReview by investing in new equipment and improving our processes to quickly respond to any issues. 
  • Ran a series of ‘Second-year Success’ focus groups to better understand how we can support students around the transition between years and their expectations and feelings when starting each new academic year. 
  • Provided sanitary wipes in all study spaces to improve cleanliness of desktops.  
  • Updating and maintaining 350 teaching spaces with AV equipment -a pivotal step towards improving learning outcomes. The change is already visible in over 30 lecture theatres and halls.   

Investment in the student voice  

Students’ Union Welfare and Liberation Wins   

  • Muslim students organised a special Friday Prayer in Library Square for Islamophobia Awareness Month which saw up to 500 attendees  
  • Students partnered with local businesses to host food trucks on campus for Asian Heritage Month, serving free food from all around the subcontinent   
  • Students hosted two free sold out Petting Zoo events hosted by the VP Welfare for Study Well  
  • The VP Welfare 2022/33, Jojo, established a food pantry in the Students’ Union to help students with the cost-of-living crisis. The current VP Welfare, Tahmid, has since developed and expanded the pantry with support from the University   
  • A Part-time Liberation Officer organised Deaf Awareness Training on campus for students during Disability Awareness Fortnight  
  • The School of Geography Rep made internal meetings more sustainable by eliminating single use plastic    

Students’ Union Education Wins  

  • The VPSE 2022/23, Muneer, secured 1-2pm as free time on Fridays for Mile End timetables to support with the prayer obligations of Muslim students  
  • A Part Time Officer hosted a talk on Muslim women in healthcare for medical students during Islamophobia Awareness Month 
  • A Part Time Officer established a more inclusive curriculum for the School of History, including a greater focus on disability and queer history which was explicitly included in department reflections guidelines   
  • The School of History Rep presented student feedback to shape the renovations of Arts 2  
  • The Students’ Union ran a Graduation Fund that helps students with the cost of graduation, including providing for free cap and gown hire.  

Students’ Union Medicine and Dentistry Wins 

  • A £4m university investment in new Students’ Union facilities at Whitechapel are now open. This includes new social and study spaces, a new Cafe & Bar space (The Griff), multi-faith facilities, a fitness suite and student kitchen. 
  • The VPBL 2022/23, Charlie, successfully lobbied Tower Hamlets to improve the NHS bursary for medical and dental students under the cost-of-living crisis.  
  • Students and PTOs successfully pushed for a Multi-Faith space in the Garrod building as originally this wasn’t planned to be included in the Garrod development.  
  • Improved the connectivity in Homerton University Hospital, helping students access reference and learning materials more easily.   

Students’ Union Sustainability Wins 

  • Students organised a Sustainability Week in November featuring 15 events including the Big Canal Clean Up, Allotment sessions, Wardrobe Refresh Fair and tours of campus facilities.   

Course Reps  

  • History Course Rep, Maddie, joined the department’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee to address microaggressions and combat the use of racial slurs in seminars. 

Inappropriate influence

Inappropriate influence is defined as any activity which may encourage students to reflect anything other than their true opinion of their experiences during their course in their NSS responses. A student guide on inappropriate influence is available which details what may constitute inappropriate influence and the types of promotion universities and colleges are, or are not, allowed to undertake. It provides details on the help and support available if you feel you are being or have been influenced in how to respond to the survey, along with the process in place to investigate allegations of inappropriate influence and what happens in case of a breach of guidance.

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