Sustainability

Widening access and participation

Building on our values and our commitment to having a positive impact on our local and global community, we are working to ensure that students from a wide range of diverse backgrounds thrive and feel a sense of belonging.

Widening participation students

Building on our values and our commitment to having a positive impact on our local and global community, we are working to ensure that students from a wide range of diverse backgrounds thrive and feel a sense of belonging.

We are ambitious in our plans for widening participation and demonstrate that within our Strategy 2030, where we state our intention to be leading on Scotland’s commitment to widening participation.

YourEd schools programme

This year has seen the development of our YourEd schools programme both in scope and numbers of pupils. YourEd is a long term programme of information, advice and guidance spanning the whole high school journey (S1-S6). From 2021 we have been expanding to 14 schools across seven different local authorities in the south east of Scotland.

Schools have been targeted based on overall academic attainment and a range of metrics such as the high proportion of pupils from areas of deprivation as defined by the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation (SIMD20), high numbers of pupils registered for free school meals and high percentages of students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

YourEd School Programme

Moving online

During the pandemic, we have worked hard to move our various widening participation activities into an accessible online format. Our annual Sutton Trust Summer School - usually a week long residential experience – took place online.

Although moving to online provision can never fully replicate the experience of being on campus, it meant we were able to increase the number of young people taking part in the programme and offer extra support to students facing isolation or social anxiety. Many participants commented that the digital format was a preferable experience, allowing individuals to work at their own pace and manage their own personal circumstances more easily, and our learnings from the past year will help shape our work going forward.  

Sutton Trust Summer School

TutorEd programme

In addition to updating existing activity, new initiatives have been created specifically tailored to work online, such as the TutorEd programme, which offers small group tuition in literacy, numeracy and the sciences. TutorEd has worked with 14 schools and has helped to bridge the gap in pupils’ learning during the extended lockdown, whilst also offering development and employment opportunities to our own students who worked as the tutors for this programme.

Care-Experience

Our support for some of the most vulnerable groups – such as those with Care-Experience – has increased with our Edinburgh Cares service and the introduction of our new Access Edinburgh Scholarship for Care-Experienced students. Applications from confirmed CareExperienced applicants who were academically qualified for entry more than doubled from 2020 to 2021.

Widening participation and inclusion can, and should be, the lens to everything we do. We can be both a world-leading centre of academic excellence and a place of opportunity for a diverse group of students, including those from some of the most deprived communities and under-represented groups in Scotland. 

Support for care-experienced applicants

IntoUniversity

The University is working together with the University of Glasgow and Edinburgh on a ground-breaking new collaboration with education charity IntoUniversity to address the needs of some of the poorest young people in Scotland. Two local education centres in Craigmillar and Govan have been launched, offering community-based support to local young people.

IntoUniversity Partnership

Scholarships

Five online Masters degree programmes will be offering scholarships for 40 students starting in the 2021 academic year, thanks to newly secured funding via the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission, focussing on delivering high-quality teaching to citizens of lower-middle income Commonwealth countries. The degree programmes include carbon management, health and medicine.

Widening participation