The 2025 National Student Survey (NSS) is now open. Promotion of the survey at Sussex begins today, Monday 27 January, and will run until the survey closes on Wednesday 30 April.

The NSS has become one of the most significant indicators of student experience in the higher education sector, with almost 346,000 students responding overall in 2024. It’s an important way for students coming towards the end of their undergraduate courses to tell the world about their time at Sussex.

Academic and Professional Services staff across the University are involved in promoting the NSS to final-year undergraduates. Whatever your role, your support is crucial to the success of our campaign to engage students in the survey.

Professor Kate O’Riordan, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students), said: “Thank you for working together on this important project. I really appreciate your help in getting more students to engage with the survey. The results can help inform applicants, employers, and our wider community about students’ experiences of their time with us.”

Resources available for staff

You can use your usual Sussex login details to access the resources for staff prepared by the Student Communications and Campaigns team. The NSS resource webpage includes a briefing document, recordings of recent online briefings, a slide that can be used in teaching sessions, digital campaign assets, and written resources, such as templates for social media posts.

The full NSS 2025 Good Practice Guide and Help cards are also available on the webpage. Please familiarise yourself with these if you are involved in survey promotion.

If you experience an issue trying to access any of these resources, you can email internalcomms@sussex.ac.uk for assistance.

Visit the Staff NSS pages for further information and answers to frequently asked questions.

If you have a question about how the survey runs, please contact Denise Cooper, Deputy Director (Academic Services) in the Division for the Student Experience.

If you teach a final-year module

If you teach a final-year module, your assistance is essential for the success of the NSS campaign in your Faculty. Some modules have been asked to give time for students to complete the survey during a teaching session. If you teach on one of these modules please ensure that the time is given, and thank you for your help with this. We would also ask all tutors to encourage students to respond to the NSS, and some of the other things we would suggest include: 

• reminding your students about the NSS in tutorials
• posting reminders on your Canvas module pages (template messages are available on the NSS resources webpage)
• adding a link to the NSS on your e-mail signature

Please remember that the University is allowed to promote the completion of the NSS and encourage students to take part, but we are not allowed to try to influence how they respond – this is known as inappropriate influence.

Why should students take part?

By taking the survey our students can help future students make decisions about which universities to apply to.

As part of the University’s NSS campaign, we are running a prize draw – eligible students who participate online could win one of 10 graduation packages worth £150. Each £150 prize will cover the cost of gown hire, two guest tickets and a basic photography package. The prize draw will run until the survey closes on 30 April 2025.

The University will also donate £1 to charity for every Sussex student that participates in the NSS. We will split this donation between charities chosen by students.

As a thank you for taking part in the NSS, students who show proof of completion (email confirmation) can also collect a free, exclusive University of Sussex t-shirt from NSS Helpers at the Student Centre or the Library (Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 11am-2pm).

The NSS can be logged for five points in the Co-Creation and Evaluation category for the Spirit of Sussex Award too.

Students can see more information about the NSS on the Student Hub.

About the survey

Managed by the Office for Students (OfS), the independent regulator of higher education in England, and run by polling company Ipsos, the NSS is used to assess the quality of a students’ degree as a whole.

NSS results are made publicly available on the Discover Uni website to help prospective students, their families and advisors make informed choices about where and what to study.

Eligible students will be able to fill in the NSS online at www.thestudentsurvey.com during the survey period. The first formal contact Ipsos will make with students will be on Thursday 30 January 2025.