Whats new?
The Student Union is holding elections in September through to October to elect our new Vice-Presidents for each faculty. These positions are:
- Vice-President Creative Arts, Business and Social Sciences (CBSS)
- Vice President Health, Education and Social Care (HESC)
- Vice President Computing, Sciences & Engineering (CSE)
The positions are part-time and the post holders will do these roles in addition to their studies. Each role will be paid 15 hours per week and the posts will continue unit the 30th June 2026.
Why did we create these roles?
We created the part-time Vice-President positions due to feedback that we received from students. Students often do not have time to take a full year out of their studies to work for us – especially home students, so we wanted to create an alternative pathway that students could use, even if they continued studying. We are especially proud to finally have an officer system that our health students are able to stand and take part in and we encourage them to do so!
The Vice-Presidents will represent each of the new faculties students and represent them at the faculty leadership committees. They will also sit on the Union’s executive committee and help direct the work of the Students Union. We did this as feedback that our students have given us indicated that the Student Union needed to do more work to engage directly with students on the ground.
How do I stand for these positions?
You can stand for the Union Vice-President positions by following these three easy steps.
- Log into our website and submit your nomination to stand.
- Meet with the candidate approval committee and get approved to stand in the election.
- Win the election!.
Candidate Approval Committee (CAC)
Being a representative of all students is a big responsibility and as a result the process that we use to confirm candidates and put them forward for election has to be robust. This is to ensure that the winning candidate would have the skills to be able to undertake the role properly.
There are two criterial that every candidate needs to meet to be able to stand:
- That the candidate has sufficient experience within the Union (or relevant external experience) to be able to stand for the position. Candidates must have been involved with our Union, or have relevant prior experience with Unions to be able to stand
- The Candidate must be able to represent all students within their faculty in a range of settings.
The Candidate Approval Committee meets with every student online that wishes to stand in our elections. They will question the candidate to ensure that the meet the outlined criteria.
Meeting the Criteria - Experience
Examples of some of the questions that the CAC will ask for this category would be:
- “How have you been involved in the Union”
- “What activities have you done to benefit the students in your cohort” or
- “What experience do you have that you think makes you perfect for the role?”
Student Unions and Universities have many strands of activity and having a baseline understanding of how everything works is essential for the roles to be successful. Key activities which would contribute to meeting this criteria include:
- Being a student rep of any kind
- Being a volunteer,
- Being a society member, or society leader
- Being any of the above in a previous institution
If you haven’t already done so and think that you would be interested in standing in the future, I would recommend that you get involved in our activities. You can click here for more information.
Meeting the Criteria – Being Representative
Examples of some of the questions that the CAC would ask in this category would be:
- “Can you tell me what actions you have taken to improve the lives of the students on your campus/course/programme”
- “Can you tell me about a time when you represented a group of students to help them create a positive change to their University experience”
- “What interactions have you had with students outside your own peer group”
There are students from over 100 countries at UWS and we need to ensure that our candidates are capable of representing such a diverse group. Key activities which would contribute to meeting this criteria include:
- Demonstrating that you have helped students, who are not in your immediate peer group, to improve their student experience.
- Examples of where you have lead groups of people to create change
- Being able to identify the challenges associated with representing diverse groups and have mechanism to deal with them.
If you have any questions about this criteria, please get in touch with the Depute Returning Officers.
We will be recruiting for members of the Candidate Approval Committee for this election. Members of the CAC are students who are paid by the Union to assess the candidates in the election according to our criteria. By being on the CAC, they confirm that they will not stand in the election that they are reviewing the candidates for and that they will be publicly neutral in the elections process. They also receive mandatory training from the Union on how to keep their decision making impartial.
If you are interested in applying for one of these positions, please click here.
Whats in it for me?
The successful candidate will form part of the Union’s political leadership, working with the executive committee to improve the lives of all students. You will receive training and gain experience that will make you more unique when applying for roles. The Vice-President positions are also paid and for 15 hours per week.
Depute Returning Officers
The Union’s staff, acting as Depute Returning Officers oversee the elections process. They answer candidate questions, organise the key dates for the process, including supporting the CAC committee. They also enforce the election rules and deal with any allegations of rule breaking.
The Depute Returning Officers report to NUS for the purposes of Returning the election as NUS acts as our Chief Returning Officer.
Key Dates for the election
- Nominations Open – 7th September 2026
- Nominations close – 18th September 2026
- Mandatory Candidate Briefing – 24th September
- Publicity Deadline 25thth September 2026
- Polling opens 29th September
- Polling close 1st October
- Election Count & Results – 2nd October
Election Rules
- Students must be free to cast their vote without undue influence or pressure.
- Obey the law, union policies, and university policies.
- Candidates must be approved by the Candidate approval committee
- Keep everyone safe
- Treat other candidates with respect and honesty.
- Items produced or primarily used for your campaign must be accounted for within the given allowance.
- Campaigning will start on the agreed upon day.
- To be confirmed as a candidate you must attend a candidate briefing, attend a CAC meeting and be confirmed, and upload a photo and a manifesto.
How it works
To give you an idea of how this works there are some examples of how the principles are applied below:
Students must be free to cast their vote without undue influence or pressure.
Candidates may not stand and watch students when they vote as the student would be under pressure to vote for that particular candidate. Candidates may not touch any electronic devices belonging to voters while campaigning, as every device is a polling station. While you may offer students benefits such as inviting them to a watch party to help students remember to you and listen to you, any benefits offered to voters must not be contingent on voting for that candidate. You cannot offer students any rewards that they get after they have voted for you, as this would be deemed as undue influence.
Obey the law, union and university policies.
This means that you as a candidate and your campaign team, as always, must adhere to the law, University regulation (such as their behavioural code, health and safety regulations, equal opportunities procedure, harassment code, damage to university property, and use of email etc.) and Union policy (such as our safe spaces policy, Elections Regulations, and our online campaigning guide etc). Breach of these policies can lead to a disciplinary which could in turn affect your student status and your Union membership.
Keep everyone safe
All campaigning during this election must be safe for everyone involved. This means that you should not campaign face to face if you are suffering from a contagious illness for example, and that you should ensure campaign teams get breaks and look after themselves.
Treat others candidates with respect
This principle covers a lot of ground. For example: defacing other candidates’ publicity, making up stories about other candidates, or heckling other candidates are among the actions that would be considered a breach of this principle.
Campaign within the allowance provided.
Each year candidates receive a financial allowance to spend on campaigning, and access to services such as video editing and graphic design consultancy to help them to run their campaigns. The allowance for 2026 is set out here.
Receipts must be kept and submitted to the Students’ Union for approval.
Campaigning will start on the agreed upon day.
Candidates may begin their campaign as soon as they are confirmed as a candidate.
To be confirmed as a candidate you must:
Be approved to stand by the Candidate Approval Committee. The Committee will interview each candidate via teams and ensure that the candidates are able to communicate their ideas and manifestos effectively, that they have the ability to represent the views of students in a wide variety of settings and that they have experience of being involved in the SU (or another appropriate organisation) for at least a term.
Attended the Candidates Briefing - Camera's must be on, so make sure you are in a place where you can focus on the meeting.
Upload a photo to the Union's website - So people know who you are.
Upload a manifesto to the Union's website - so people know what you stand for.
Your status as a candidate will not be confirmed until you have attended a candidate briefing, and uploaded a photo and a manifesto to the Students’ Union website, and confirmed that you understand the role you are running for.
Campaign Allowance
Your campaign allowance is money to help you campaign. We provide this to all candidates to make sure that you can afford to run for election. You must not spend any of your own money to run for election. You may wish to spend this money on posters or flyers, t-shirts for your campaign team, or anything else that you think will get you noticed and encourage students to vote for you. You may not offer students rewards (such as sweets) for voting for you, but you may offer sweets to encourage students to talk to you.
The campaign allowance for this election is £100.00
Travel Rules
You can use your campaign allowance to travel to differen campuses to campaign during the campaign period. This convers candidates only – unfortunately we cannot cover the travel costs of your campaign team. Where possible you should travel by public transport.
How to claim your travel and campaign allowances
- Inform us of what you would like to purchase, including sharing any designs with us for your printed materials – such as posters or flyers, and the costs of each item by email the returning officers at the contact details below.
- After receiving approval you can either:
- Purchase the materials using your own funds and submit the expense form with receipts to claim reimbursement.
- Request funding in advance, using the epxenses form, and then submit the receipt.
You can download a copy of the expenses form here
Failure to follow this process or if you spend more than your allowance may result in your expense not being reimbursed and you’ll be referred to the Returning officers for disciplinary action – which can result in you being withdrawn from the election entirely.