Widening access and participation
Here's how we support widening access and participation through our products and services.
Here's how we support widening access and participation through our products and services.
Using applicant and survey data, UCAS publishes high-impact reports offering insight into students’ progression to their next steps, including the barriers and motivations along the way. These reports cover a broad range of issues, including student decision-making, mental health, apprenticeships, LGBT+, and widening participation.
In March 2021, we released our 'Where next' report, which highlighted the impact of qualification and subject choice at school on students’ future pathways, and recommended ways they can be better supported to make fully informed choices at every stage.
Every year, UCAS publishes an end of cycle report which provides data and narrative reports, helping to describe national trends in applicant behaviour across the four countries of the UK.
To support HE providers with their widening access and participation work, we've developed good practice in collaboration with expert organisations. They give examples of the support and good practice available, offer considerations for providers that may not have a defined package of support in place, and explain how providers can prepare for future changes to application data.
Supporting disadvantaged and under-represented groups
We also provide student-facing information and advice to support under-represented groups applying to higher education:
To help teachers and advisers supporting young people from under-represented backgrounds, we offer some specific tools and resources including:
Outreach Evaluator (STROBE) is a service developed by UCAS in 2014. It supports the evaluation of widening access and participation activities by taking the personal data that has been supplied and matching it to the UCAS database to trace the progress of the individual. UCAS publishes over two million data points which can be used to support widening access and participation. While the service relies on the input of named data, the output is in an aggregated format. It can be accessed free of charge provided specific criteria are met:
Contextual information and data can be used by universities and colleges to assess an applicant’s achievement and potential in light of their educational and socio-economic background. The aim is to form a more complete picture of an individual applicant’s characteristics.
To support contextualised admissions, we currently offer two contextual data services for providers:
Find out more about contextualised admissions
In addition to standard personal details and qualifications information, UCAS also gives applicants the opportunity to declare additional information — such as an impairment, or experience of the care system. We ask these questions to give contextual information to providers, to identify those applicants who may be eligible for additional support, whatever form that may take (i.e. financial or emotional).
We work with a range of organisations to provide relevant, expert information and advice to different audiences. Organisations we have worked with to support students with specific individual needs include:
The National Union of Students (NUS) is the national voice of students, providing information and advice on all aspects of student life.
Student Action for Refugees (STAR) is a national network of student groups working to improve the lives of refugees in the UK. They offer a list of scholarships available to asylum seekers and refugees who want to go to university.
Refugee Support Network offers support services to help refugees and asylum seekers overcome any challenges in going to university, and offers useful resources.
UCAS regularly engages with regulators around the UK, including the Office for Students (OfS) in England, the Higher Education Funding Council Wales (HEFCW), and the Scottish Funding Council. The organisations require universities and colleges to outline their plans to support widening access and participation and success in HE.
UCAS is a member of the following organisations:
UCAS also works with organisations to facilitate the evaluation of the impact of their widening access and participation activities. View an example of
The Brilliant Club - UCAS impact evaluation (578.41 KB)