Post COVID 19 and food pathways to sustainable transformation

International audienc

Financial Support Evaluation 2020/21: Interview Tool Results. The Access and Participation Plan Evaluation Project.

This report details the findings of interviews with undergraduate students in receipt of institutional scholarships, bursaries and financial assistance funds and their views of the financial support available at the University of Lincoln (UoL). The project was undertaken by Dr. Rachel Spacey and Rebecca Sanderson in the Lincoln Higher Education Research Institute (LHERI) from November 2021 to March 2022. It accompanies an earlier report presented to the Access and Participation Plan Oversight Group (APPOG) in September 2021 entitled Financial Support Evaluation 2020/21: Survey Tool Results

Widening access to higher education for BAME students and students from lower socio-economic groups: A review of literature

Despite well documented and persistent inequalities in access to higher education (HE), the evidence base for widening participation activities remains weak. Recent changes to the state regulation of UK HE has renewed pressure on universities and other HE providers to develop effective interventions to tackle these inequalities, but with limited evidence of what works the risk of failure is high. Recent emphasis on robust systematic literature reviews of existing widening participation research has attempted to address this deficit, but typically focusses only on the few existing quantitative studies with an experimental or quasi-experimental design. This literature review is tailored to the needs of widening participation practitioners and aims to synthesise a broader range of evidence with a view to assessing a more comprehensive approach. With a focus on access and outreach for students with lower socio-economic status and for students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups, the authors consider the literature from the UK and further afield in relation to financial support, information, advice and guidance (IAG), mentoring, summer schools, and multi-intervention or ‘black box’ programmes. Drawing on realist approaches, the authors also consider the contextual conditions which may influence the success (or failure) of these interventions and should therefore be considered in the design and implementation of widening participation activities

Engaging students without family support with university support services: a review of the literature

This report presents the findings of a systematic literature review to explore best practice in engaging care-experienced and estranged students, referred to as ‘students without family support’ by the regulator for Higher Education in England (Office for Students, 2020) with university support services undertaken by researchers from the Access and Participation Plan Evaluation Project team. It was conceived in response to a request from members of the University of Lincoln Widening Participation Community of Practice (CoP) who identified that where targeted interventions in support of these students had been developed, uptake was often lower than expected. Review written by the Access and Participation Plan Evaluation Project team based in the Lincoln Higher Education Research Institute

The Stand Alone Pledge: Analysis of Pledge Letters and Commitments

The Stand Alone Pledge was first devised by the charity Stand Alone (SA) in 2016 to garner publicly declared support from institutions providing Higher Education (HE) in support of estranged students: “Young people studying without the support and approval of a family network” (Stand Alone, 2016a, np). As of November 2022, 112 institutions, including universities and colleges, have made the Pledge. In August 2022, Dr. Rachel Spacey and Rebecca Sanderson from the Lincoln Higher Education Research Institute at the University of Lincoln (UoL) were awarded the tender to evaluate the Stand Alone Pledge. This report details the findings of that analysis completed in November 2022 (Ethics Reference: UoL2022_10126). The evaluators reviewed all 112 SA Pledge letters (a statement of commitment signed by an institution’s Vice-Chancellor or deputy) in conjunction with the information provided on each institution’s profile page on the SA website. The support offered was then mapped according to key indicators agreed with SA and analysed descriptively using both MS Excel and IBM SPSS Software

Engaging students without family support with university support services: A systematic review of the literature

This article presents the findings of a systematic literature review to explore best practice in engaging care-experienced and estranged students with university support services. These students are referred to collectively as ‘students without family support’ by the Office for Students (the regulator for Higher Education in England), and are known to experience diverse challenges in relation to access to higher education, attainment and progression to further study or graduate employment. A systematic literature search was undertaken using a modified version of the PICO framework. A total of 69 items were found. Following an abstract screening process, 26 papers, articles and reports were included in the final analysis. The review demonstrates that there is a profound deficit of understanding of how to engage students without family support with support interventions across the HE sector, with no published studies identified which explore or evaluate initiatives and strategies to increase engagement, despite widespread acknowledgement that this group of students are more likely to require additional support with finances, orientation, wellbeing and study skills and less likely to access that support than other students. Four main themes were identified in the review of literature and these are explored here with a view to identifying the factors university staff could consider and address when providing support designed for these groups (impact of past experiences, barriers and facilitators to accessing support, stigma and identity and developing a sense of belonging)

Widening Access to Higher Education - What Works? A Review of Relevant Literature. Access and Participation Plan Evaluation Project.

This document presents the findings of a systematic review of the literature of effective widening access interventions of direct relevance to the access targets set out in the University of Lincoln’s (UoL) Access and Participation Plan (APP) 2020-2025. This was undertaken by the Access and Participation Plan Evaluation Project (APPEP) team based in the Lincoln Higher Education Research Institute (LHERI) to help support colleagues in Communications, Development and Marketing (CDM) in the development of outreach activities to support their access targets

Access and Participation Plan Student Consultation Group: The Impact of COVID-19 Phase II

This report focuses on the ongoing experiences of undergraduate students who are traditionally under-represented in Higher Education (HE) or who self-identify with characteristics of disadvantage at the University of Lincoln (UoL) during the academic year 2020/21 as the COVID-19 pandemic continued. These students come within the remit of the UoL’s Access and Participation Plan (APP)