Equality in Higher Education Innovation Fund

This project will pilot a national ‘pre-arrival’ survey for new undergraduate and postgraduate students across selected higher education providers in England.

By improving understanding of students' pre-arrival experiences, it aims to:

• inform new policy and practice
• standardise data collection and usage across the sector
• drive local initiatives to better align student expectations with actual experiences
• collect diverse data representing various institutions and student demographics
• provide robust evidence to help address disparities in student experiences and outcomes.

Project partners:

• University of East London (UEL)
• Jisc.

This project will support young people who are furthest away from attending further or higher education.

At the start of the project, the young person will undertake activities that will set individual baselines around education, wellbeing, and family support.

The information collected in these assessments, coupled with various other data sources, will create an individual learning plan for each young person. This will involve:

• family support
• tutoring
• structured mentoring from trained Birmingham City University students and graduates.

Project partners:

• Barnardo’s
• Liminal Education
• Our Place Support (OPS) CIC

This project aims to evaluate the effectiveness of outreach programmes designed to help disadvantaged young people access higher education.

While individual providers already assess their activities, this initiative will measure the overall impact of these programmes on reducing socioeconomic gaps in higher education participation.

The work will track students who benefit from outreach but then choose different providers, recognising this outcome as a success for both the delivering provider and the sector.

The project will link and analyse data from multiple large datasets, including national administrative records, enabling what aims to be the largest analysis of outreach activity data in England to date.

Project partners:

• University College London
• East Midlands Widening Participation Research and Evaluation Partnership (EMWPREP)
• Aimhigher West Midlands (AHWM).

IntoUniversity and Anglia Ruskin University will assess the effectiveness of developing of metacognitive skills (i.e. the awareness and understanding of students' own thought processes) as a way of improving attainment.

The project will explore early intervention measures out-of-school, to support primary students’ attainment and to build knowledge and understanding of higher education.

The project will:

• evaluate IntoUniversity’s approach to academic support to develop metacognitive skills
• refine the approach to improve outcomes for students across IntoUniversity’s nationwide network of centres
• address the lack of knowledge of what works for developing metacognition in a widening participation context
• share learnings with the wider sector.

Project partners:

• Anglia Ruskin University.

This project will focus on what works for supporting children on a child protection plan.

This is an under-served student community with some of the lowest school attainment and higher education progression outcomes, and almost entirely absent from access interventions and contextual admissions processes.

The project includes:

• university visits
• academic tutorials from The Brilliant Club
• small-group coaching from Frontline
• a series of sector events, including a ‘what works’ conference hosted by the University of Sheffield.

The project will be dual-sited, to allow exploration of the issues affecting children in different locations.

Project partners:

• University of Sheffield
• London Academy of Excellence, Tottenham
• Frontline.

This project aims to develop an inclusive practice model that supports disabled students, enhances their confidence and self-efficacy in assessments, and could reduce reliance on reasonable adjustments.

The key objectives include:

• creating a new model to help disabled students achieve greater success
• developing a mechanism to measure student confidence and self-efficacy in assessments
• identifying more students with disabilities or learning needs potentially requiring reasonable adjustments
• producing a report and new resources to contribute to the evidence base on inclusive assessment approaches.

Project partners:

• Norland College
• Richmond, the American International University in London Limited
• Independent Higher Education (IHE)
• Diversity and Ability.

This project will explore how new flexible forms of higher education can be co-created with communities.

The University of Bristol and Hartcliffe and Withywood Ventures (HWV) will work together with employers, further education colleges, and other community partners to run co-design workshops and co-create a new micro-qualification that can be offered at a new micro-campus in Hartcliffe.

The community hub, run by HWV, is in an area with the lowest level of participation in higher education in Bristol and among the lowest in the UK.

The micro-qualification will be designed so that it can be adapted into other contexts.

Project partners:

• Hartcliffe and Withywood Ventures
• Jeff Way Group
• GKN Aerospace
• Burges Salmon
• South Bristol Youth
• City of Bristol College
• Weston College
• Western Training Provider Network
• West of England Combined Authority (WECA).

This project aims to enhance the experiences of black, Asian and minority ethnic students on NHS placements through a new game-based learning environment.

Key activities include:

• gathering qualitative data on students' placement experiences
• developing a new game-based learning environment
• testing the new learning environment across targeted placements
• revising the learning environment based on the findings
• disseminating findings across academic, practice, and industry sectors.

Project partners:

• Derbyshire Community Health Services (DCHS) NHS Foundation Trust
• Applio.

This STEMM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine) bullying and harassment intervention aims to address bullying and harassment in STEMM disciplines.

The project will use new and different methods to understand the diverse experiences and impacts on mental health, wellbeing, and student success.

By working with students, the project will co-design recommendations, pilot interventions, and implement new guidance and resources, including a sector-wide train-the-trainer programme.

Project partners:

• University of Lincoln
• Lancaster University
• Sheila Kanani MBE
• Institute of Physics
• Royal Society of Chemistry.

This collaboration focuses on disabled students’ experiences of reasonable adjustment plans. This project partnership, co-led by disabled students, places the requirements, expertise and knowledge of disabled students at its centre.

The project will:

• co-create new continuing professional development courses for academic and student services staff
• publish sector-wide guidelines
• establish a new platform of deliverables for use across the sector
• share new ways to establish and sustain institutional change.

Project partners:

• University of Wolverhampton
• University of Birmingham
• Disabled Students UK
• Disability Rights UK.

The project will build knowledge and evidence of ‘what works’ when working with service children.

The project will:

• review established interventions
• co-create an innovative programme that more directly addresses the diverse needs of service children
• increase collaboration between further education colleges and higher education providers to better understand the transition and progression of service children into post-18 settings.

As part of the project, HEAT will develop a new Automated Comparator Group Tool that will be integrated within its existing systems and will be used by partners to record and evaluate all activities.

Project partners:

• Inspiring Choices programme
• Askham Bryan College
• York College
• Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT)
• University of Winchester – Service Children Progression Alliance (SCiP).