During 2008, Birmingham City University (BCU) began to develop approaches to enable students to have a greater ownership of the enhancement of learning and teaching at the university in order to break down some of the real and perceived barriers between students and staff. This work led to the development of the Student Academic Partners scheme which employs students to work in collaboration with staff on educational development projects spanning across the university. At a time when a number of institutions are considering student employment following the HEFCE funded project in 2009, this paper considers opportunities for student engagement in educational development and provides a case study of student employment at BCU as a cross-institutional approach to embedding collaboration between students and staff for learning and teaching development. Locating the scheme within the literature, practice and evaluation, we offer four principles for facilitating an institutional culture of collaborative educational development and evaluate the impact of the investment on students, staff and the institution as a whole.