Lead the way

The LSU Student Leadership Elections are our annual student leader elections and an opportunity for students to choose their full-time Executive Officer Team for the upcoming year. These students, once elected, work for a whole academic year to represent everyone studying on a Loughborough University course.

For the Student Leadership Elections, all current students (inclusive of Doctoral Researchers) are eligible to stand for one of our full-time paid positions. Current Executive Officers are also able to run for a second term either in their current position or another if they wish to.

We value the positive impact that difference can have and are committed to having an elected student body that is made up of diverse skills, experiences, and abilities. We are encouraging nominations from as broad a range of students as possible and from those who are currently under-represented within our governance structures including, but not limited to, members of the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), International, Disabled, LGBTQ+ and Doctoral Researcher communities.

If you are a final year student, you will commence this role straight after completing your studies. If you are a non-final year student, then you would be required to take a break from your studies to take up the role and therefore you must be a registered student next year in order to nominate yourself. If you a Postgraduate Taught student, you would usually also need to take a break from your studies as the role begins full-time in July. Depending on your circumstances and the requirements of the role, it may be possible to accommodate concluding your studies alongside beginning your role, however this would need to be agreed by your School, the University and LSU (as well as being in line with any Visa restrictions, if applicable).

If you are hoping to be an Executive Officer next year, either as a placement year, alongside finishing your degree, or a leave of absence from your studies, we recommend that you speak with your School as soon as possible to discuss this. If you are a Doctoral Researcher, you may be permitted to take a sabbatical from your research, and you should discuss this with your supervisors in the first instance.

If you think your friend would make a great student leader, we'd love to know!

Whether they've never considered running in the Student Leadership Elections, or just need some gentle encouragement to run, we want to hear from you. We'll email your friend letting them know they've been recommended, encourage them to consider running and provide all of the essential information about the role and election process.

No, each individual can only run for a single Executive Officer position in an elections cycle.

As with most elections, to be elected, you'll have to get the highest number of votes!

All Loughborough Students' Union members will be able to submit their vote electronically at lsu.co.uk/elections once voting opens. You will have the opportunity to actively campaign in-person and digitally to gain student support.

If you are unable to submit a nomination for any reason, please contact elections@lsu.co.uk.

Pre-campaigning is when a candidate tries to earn people's votes before their candidacy has been officially announced with the Candidate Reveal.

Some examples of pre-campaigning are:

• Announcing in any capacity that you will be running in the Student Leadership Elections
• Encouraging people to vote for you
• Anything that may promote or support your upcoming campaign

There's plenty you can do to start planning your campaign without crossing the line of pre-campaigning:

• Preparing campaign materials (including social media pages, posters, videos and digital assets)
• Seeking help from people who you would like to be on your campaign team
• Finding out what issues are affecting students and consider how these issues can be addressed

International students with a Tier 4 visa are permitted to run in the elections and take a position as an Executive Officer at Loughborough Students' Union.

• Loughborough University can continue to sponsor your visa while you undertake an Executive Officer role.
• If you have enough time remaining on your current visa, you do not need to make a special visa application for your time as an Executive Officer.
• The University will make a report to the UK Visas and Immigration department of the Home Office, informing them of the change of your circumstances. However, it is likely that you will eventually have to extend your visa. If you are successfully elected, applications to change your circumstances can be made by emailing Student Services.

Yes, candidates will be given a budget of £50.

Student groups are not permitted to endorse individual candidates, but are encouraged to promote the Elections as a whole.

All students at Loughborough University are eligible to vote in the Student Leadership Elections!

Once voting opens, you can vote by logging into your account on the LSU website and heading to the Elections.

Voting is conducted using a Single Transferable Vote system. Watch the video below to find out how it works!

With the Single Transferable Voting system, you can rank the candidates in order of preference.

In the first instance please email elections@lsu.co.uk.

The Acting Returning Officer will receive your complaint and take the most appropriate action.

Where there is a potential breach of the election rules, the candidate in question will be notified of the breach and the investigation taking place. The investigation will be completed within 24 hours of receiving the initial complaint and, where necessary, a sanction will be imposed on the candidate.

Intimidation, abuse, discrimination, or attempted voter bribery will not be tolerated by the Union. Complaints of this nature will be referred to a complaint panel before making recommendation to the Returning Officer to remove a candidate from the election if the complaint is upheld.

During the campaign period the elections inbox in monitored between:

• 08:00 and 21:00 Monday – Friday
• 10:00 and 14:00 Saturday - Sunday

EDI stands for Equity, Diversity & Inclusion and is a key part of our mission and strategy and Loughborough Student's Union. We share Loughborough University's commitment to prioritising activities that identify and remove systemic inequities, associated with protected characteristics and marginalised groups, as well as progressing equity and inclusion.

We value the positive impact that difference can have and are committed to having an elected student body that is made up of diverse skills, experiences, and abilities. We are encouraging nominations from students who are currently under-represented within our governance structures including, but not limited to, members of the BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic), International, Disabled, LGBTQ+ and Doctoral Researcher communities.

It is important to us that all students (inclusive of researchers) feel they have had equal opportunity to nominate themselves if they wish to, to be informed of the candidates running, to read their manifestos, and to cast their vote. Whilst we have an Executive Officer role dedicated to EDI and driving our strategy forward in this area, all successfully elected Executive Officers will be expected to uphold our EDI principles and policies, and we expect to see an appreciation of this from candidates and campaign teams during the elections period.

If you have any questions or concerns relating to EDI, please contact Gabbie Dempsey (Head of Student Representation and EDI).

Loughborough Students' Union is well on our way on our journey towards becoming an anti-racist organisation, and our current and incoming Executive Officer teams are key to this. To drive forward our work in this important area, all members of the Elections Working Group and a wider team of staff have undertaken EDI and Anti-racist training. You can find the University's approach to Race Equity here and the definition of racism that we are guided by here.

There is no place for racism in our elections and we encourage you to report to us in the first instance via elections@lsu.co.uk any concerns or complaints you have regarding racist behaviour online or on campus, either that you have experienced yourself or that you have witnessed. If you don't feel able to raise your concern to us directly, you can also report to the University via their incident reporting tool.