London Higher welcomes the publication today, 15 April, of the Office for Students’ response to its consultation on Regional Access Partnerships (RAPs). The RAPs were proposed as a potential successor initiative to Uni Connect, which is the government’s current national collaborative outreach programme.
As a delivery partner in Uni Connect and its predecessor programmes, London Higher has facilitated partnerships between its members and other regional partners that have supported thousands of underrepresented young people in the capital’s higher education outreach ‘cold spots’.
It is encouraging to see core recommendations made in London Higher’s consultation response, which called for stable, longer-term programme funding and a framework that enables place-based working and alignment with local skills and opportunity priorities, are echoed by many of the other responses.
Commenting on the announcment, Dr Richard Boffey, Head of AccessHE, said:
“London Higher has brokered pan-London collaboration on access and participation for over 15 years so we look forward to continuing to support work to implement a Regional Access Partnership for the capital and playing an active part in it once it is operational.
In the interim, we urge the OfS to confirm Uni Connect funding for the 2026-27 academic year at the earliest possible opportunity, to ensure the necessary transitional work ahead of the proposedcommencement of RAPs can be undertaken. Any further delays to funding announcements risk jeopardising ongoing collaborative outreach work that is needed now more than ever, as disadvantage gaps in rates of HE participation nationally and regionally grow after almost a decade of steady reduction.
The RAP model holds promise for reversing this worrying trend, provided it does not have to begin by making up for lost time in 2026-27.”
