Our Access and Participation Plan Project
What is APP?
The Office for Students requires all higher education providers to submit an Access and Participation Plan (APP), which aims to set out how the institution will improve equality of opportunity. The APP is a series of quantified aims with detail on the support and structures in place to achieve the set aim. More information about the University’s Access & Participation Plan can be found here.
The APP flags that are a focus for the institution, as defined by the OfS, are:
- Higher education participation, household income or socioeconomic status (WP)
- BAME students
- Mature students
- Disabled students
- Care leavers
APP within the Faculty of Science & Engineering
In FSE, we initiated an APP project to connect directly with students from the various APP categories, specialist support services and student societies to gather a better understanding of the barriers faced by each group, their experiences of existing support services and their recommendations in relation to what additional support is needed to progress our APP aims. This data was then analysed and compiled into reports to inform our strategies and interventions. A copy of these reports will be available to access shortly.
We have established three groups to systematically examine APP within the Faculty. One group is dedicated to Access, Recruitment, and Outreach, while each School has its own group focused on Student Success and Outcomes. All groups use data-informed insights to design, implement, monitor, and evaluate interventions. Each group includes broad participation across the institution, including student representation.
If anyone is interested in learning more about our APP work, please feel free to contact FSEteachingcollege@manchester.ac.uk with any questions.
