[1][2][3] The establishment of Eastern Arc was recognised by Harrison, Smith and Kinton (2015)[4] as part of the 'new regionalisation of UK higher education.'

Each of the themes was led by a permanent academic at each university, and a fellow was appointed on a five-year contract to work with them, meaning that there were nine early career researchers funded across Eastern Arc Within Digital Humanities and Quantitative Social Sciences there were two students at each university; in Synthetic Biology there were three.

[11] He developed a strategy for 2020-25 that continued to focus on developing interdisciplinary collaborations, but moved away from the three pillars of the first iteration, focusing instead on four themes that were identified as collective strengths of the three universities through mapping field-weighted citation impact, REF2014 outcomes, grant capture and a number of other qualitative data.

Their membership necessitated the signing of a new memorandum of understanding, which extended the remit of the Consortium 'to support research, education, innovation, knowledge exchange, training, and equipment-sharing.'

Sussex's membership coincided with the development and launch of the Consortium's next five year strategy, the vision of which was 'to collaborate to deliver real, tangible and positive change in four areas that both define our region and impact the world: coast, food, heritage and sanctuary.