Widening Participation in your Student Recruitment

Universities spend a great deal of time, energy and resource attracting new students in an increasingly competitive environment whilst aiming to achieve equality of opportunity in their recruitment, in order to meet targets set by the Office for Students.

Alterline has developed two new solutions, focusing on Widening Participation, to meet these demands. Each will provide intelligence and insight across different stages of the student journey, enabling Universities to drive their activity, develop a competitive edge and increase their impact from recruitment and outreach right through to supporting student success.

Widening Participation in Student Recruitment

The first of our new solutions Student Recruitment Pulse: Widening Participation will provide compelling evidence, on a repeating basis, about the lives, perceptions and experiences of under-represented groups of applicants. Universities will be able use the national insight, generated every two years, to:

Becoming a partner in the first year of the Pulse (2019/20) means you will help to shape the research design. At this stage, the research objectives include:

  • How are young people in under-represented groups making their decisions about university applications? How does this differ across groups of prospective students?
  • What factors are most important in decision-making for different under-represented groups?
  • What practical, emotional or perception barriers to entry exist?
  • Are applicants aware of specific recruitment and outreach campaigns targeted at under-represented groups? What impact have these had?

How will this Student Recruitment Pulse work?

The project will kick-off with a collaborative workshop in November 2019, bringing together participating universities from across the UK. Fresh intelligence will be delivered through a strategic report based on new national quantitative research with 1,250 prospective students (Year 12 and 13) who have applied, or are in the process of applying, to University plus qualitative research with around 60 of those prospective students . The group of students consulted will include: students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, BAME students and students with disabilities.

Alterline’s unique collaborative research model brings universities together to work on common challenges and build communities of innovative practice. By taking part you’ll have the opportunity to:

  • Help shape the research design
  • Share ideas and build links with other institutions
  • Save time and resource with Alterline’s full-service research support
  • Gain detailed insights from the full strategic research report and easily implement actions from the practical recommendations
  • Easily share high level insights with your key stakeholders from summary documents and presentations.

How much does it cost?

Joining this collaboration means you will have access to the valuable insights and practical recommendations for just £5,500 per year (excl. VAT). Participation will be on a three year basis, which will include two national reports, best practice networking and annual action workshops.

The deadline for joining the project is the 30th October 2019. For more information click here to email Sharon Steele, Client Communities Manager, at sharon.steele@alterline.co.uk or call 0161 503 5760.

You might also like to find out more about our companion solution to this one for Student Success in Widening Participation.