Underpinned by a compassionate belief in the important role played by Higher Education in increasing social mobility. Everyone with ‘ability, aptitude and potential’ should have equal opportunity to access the advantages it provides.

This is particularly the case for small and specialist institutions, which provide specific educational and career opportunities, but lack the economies of scale that would directly transmit their offer to all of those students who could benefit most from it. By working closely with these providers we are generating opportunities for collaboration and shared resource, bringing together providers and students to generate maximum benefit for both. 

Our Vision

By adopting a collaborative forward thinking approach we will support and enable small, specialist and newly registered higher education providers to successfully deliver their access and participation mission through an efficient delivery model. By working together we will develop and establish a collective voice which is heard and respected by the regulator and across the sector, and is recognised as a source of intelligence, evidence and influence.

Our Mission

To support small, specialist and newly registered higher education providers to: 

  • meet all regulatory requirements related to data, monitoring, evaluation and research, across the whole student lifecycle as agreed in institutional Access and Participation Plans

  • ensure strategic alignment across relevant activities and add value to broader institutional priorities 

  • support and provide high-level strategic advice across the core gap areas common to these institutions, being: Data; Monitoring and Analysis; Research; and Evaluation

  • identify opportunities for collaboration and leveraging shared resource


For education to be a leveller of opportunity, all those with ability, aptitude and potential need to have equal access to what it can offer.
— University Challenge: How Higher Education Can Advance Social Mobility. A progress report by the Independent Reviewer on Social Mobility and Child Poverty

Benefits for our partners

Full support with data collection, collation and analysis OfS reporting 

Development of collaborative targets and strategic measures

Access to a range of high-level experts and expert advice and support

Collaborative research and evaluation pieces to inform and drive practice

Reduced cost of service delivery

Support to develop and implement an evaluation framework

Provision of evaluation and assessment on activity, reporting

Support to monitor / report on progress (incl. contextualising and benchmarking) 

Increased range and scale of outreach services delivered 

Increased penetration of brand and offer into targeted schools (local to national), and speed to market.