Embedding Compassion Curriculum at Liverpool John Moores University to Improve Student Wellbeing and Engagement with Explorance MLY

About Liverpool John Moores University

Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), founded in 1992 and rooted in educational traditions dating back to 1823, is a dynamic civic university located in Liverpool, UK. Committed to transforming lives, LJMU places students at the heart of its mission, emphasizing inclusivity, compassion, and social responsibility. With a strong focus on research excellence and sustainability, LJMU actively promotes positive social impact locally and globally.

The challenge: Making Wellbeing a Core Part of Academic Life

Like many universities, Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) was facing a growing student wellbeing crisis. One in five students self-reported that their mental health was negatively impacting their ability to learn, which reflected a broader set of issues affecting higher education in the UK.

The lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, combined with the cost-of-living crisis, mounting student debt, and a sociopolitical climate that often framed students as “entitled,” were contributing to a hostile learning environment. Phil Carey, Dean of the Teaching and Learning Academy at LJMU, recognized that this was not just a student issue, it posed a wider risk to institutional outcomes such as retention, satisfaction, and reputation.

At the same time, staff well-being was under similar strain. Phil emphasized that student success was inseparable from staff morale: “You can’t have happy students without also having happy staff.” The university’s existing strategies, however, didn’t always address these overlapping pressures.

There was limited policy language or institutional guidance around compassion and how to support the kind of human-centered teaching practices Phil believed were necessary. The question became how to embed compassion into curriculum design, not as an abstract value, but as a practical and measurable component of academic life.

The solution: Co-Creating a Compassionate Learning Experience with Explorance Blue and MLY

In 2022, Phil led a bold revision of LJMU’s Learning, Teaching, and Assessment Strategy, insisting that terms like “kindness” and “compassion” be explicitly included. With those values formally adopted, Phil collaborated with the RAISE network (Researching, Advancing, and Inspiring Student Engagement) to co-create a Compassionate Curriculum Framework.

This initiative brought together hundreds of students and staff from around the world in workshops focused on building a model that integrated curriculum design, teaching delivery, and assessment. The framework addressed not just formal learning outcomes but also student support services and the “hidden curriculum”, which are the unspoken norms and expectations that influence student experience.

To evaluate and refine this framework, Phil placed student feedback at the center. While LJMU already used structured instruments like the National Student Survey (NSS) and module evaluations through Explorance Blue, he noted that the most powerful insights came from open-text feedback.

Explorance MLY emerged as “the game-changer" for LJMU in their quest to truly understand student feedback. MLY made it possible to detect patterns, trends, sentiment, and outliers within student narratives that would otherwise go unnoticed.

The outcome: Measurable Impact on Student Wellbeing and Engagement

MLY allowed LJMU to process large volumes of qualitative feedback quickly, revealing recurring themes around inclusion, empathy, and belonging. It flagged urgent issues and supported demographic analysis to understand how different groups were experiencing the curriculum. Phil described it as the engine that brought the Compassionate Curriculum Framework to life “That’s where they tell us the story of kindness or the lack of it.” Phil said.

At the same time, Phil was clear that while MLY provided critical speed and structure, human interpretation remained essential. “It helps us make judgments, but it doesn’t make them for us,” he explained.

To build momentum and institutional support, Phil strategically aligned the framework with national initiatives such as the UK’s Student Mental Health Charter and the regulatory priorities of the Office for Students. This alignment helped secure sector-wide legitimacy and internal buy-in. Today, compassion is not just a stated value at LJMU, it is increasingly woven into policy, curriculum design, and daily practice.