The Office for Fair Access’s approach to research and evidence has been successful in helping universities and colleges to improve higher education access and participation by working in more effective ways, an impact review published today has found.
The review, conducted by the consultancy Nursaw Associates as OFFA prepares to close at the end of this month, investigated how far OFFA’s Evidence and Effective Practice activities have met its objective to ‘support and challenge the sector to continually improve outcomes through the generation of and learning from robust evaluation, research and analysis’.
It determined that the higher education sector considers the research produced and commissioned by OFFA as
- highly valuable
- credible
- robust
and that support for the sector to develop good practice is seen as critical to securing further progress in access and participation.
The research included surveys and interviews with staff from universities, colleges and third sector organisations, and analysis of access agreements. Read more