OfS announces What Works centre for access and equality

A centre to help universities improve their widening participation practices is to be set up with funding from the Office for Students.

The Evidence and Impact Exchange, or EIX, will be established by a consortium from King’s College London, Nottingham Trent University and the Behavioural Insights Team, a part government-owned organisation that researches how behavioural economics and psychology can improve policy. The OfS will fund the centre with £4.5 million over the next three years. 

The centre, which is expected to launch this spring, will promote equality of opportunity by producing evidence on the impact of different approaches to widening access and improving outcomes for disadvantaged students. It will be part of the government’s What Works network of research centres that aim to produce evidence-informed guidance.