Education is often identified as an engine of equal opportunity, but factors within and beyond our educational institutions and systems prevent this. Persistent educational inequality causes polarisation between people with different educational experiences and outcomes.  

The Education Equity Initiative (EEI) brings together educational researchers, practitioners and policy makers, with the goal of an inclusive and equitable quality education for all. Our focus on equity is concerned with identifying and implementing the actions necessary to enable people from all backgrounds to access and participate, be recognised and valued, and succeed in education across the life-course.  

Our approach to this involves integrating multiple perspectives from academic disciplines, policy-makers and practitioners.  This enables a deep understanding of the complexity of learners and their contexts, taking account of varying and intersecting characteristics, as well as the structural features of institutions and systems that influence their experiences, prospects and outcomes. We produce insights for a wide range of audiences and, crucially, deploys them through the development, testing and implementation of new educational policies and practices.  

By cutting through the existing siloes of knowledge, policy and practice, we aim for an honest, rounded and rigorous view on the dynamics of educational equity and the ways in which it could be improved.     

The EEI provides a platform for this by:

• Harnessing the expertise of the University’s research centres.
• Engaging partners from educational institutions, government and third sector organisations in the design and delivery of research projects and educational programmes.
• Testing new ways of understanding in educational settings, creating robust evidence for policy and practice based on a balanced and pragmatic understanding of options and their consequences.
• Supporting a new generation of researchers and educators with insights across the different factors influencing educational equity, and with deep connections into policy and practice.  

This embodies our commitment to integrated scholarship, through which learning and teaching, discovery research, the integration of knowledge and their application for impact beyond the University come together.