Devon social mobility expert to lead landmark national educational project

A leading University of Exeter researcher has been selected for a prestigious national fellowship to ensure that the “architecture” of UK university admissions works for everyone—including students from rural and coastal communities across the South West.

Professor Anna Mountford-Zimdars, a leading international expert in social mobility, has been awarded a UKRI What Works Innovation Fellowship. Over the next 18 months, she will be seconded to TASO (Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education), the national evidence hub for higher education policy.

Working between London and Exeter, Professor Mountford-Zimdars will investigate “contextualised admissions”—the practice where universities look at the background and hurdles a student has faced, rather than just their exam results.

“In many rural and coastal areas like ours, a student’s potential isn’t always reflected in a single grade on a piece of paper,” says Professor Mountford-Zimdars. “This fellowship is about making the system fairer, ensuring that talent in Devon has the same opportunity to thrive as talent in London.”

Professor Mountford-Zimdars, who chairs the University of Exeter’s South West Social Mobility Strategy Group, and is currently co-ordinating a pilot for an exam centre for home-educated young people involving Devon and Cornwall County Council, will spend part of her week at TASO’s headquarters in Blackfriars, London, collaborating with national policymakers and the Department for Education.

Her work will involve mapping and clarifying current practices in contextualised admissions to university-level courses across England and research to understand why and how contextualisation is used; designing a model or tool to measure the impact of contextualisation with case studies of effective practice and identify gaps in data and infrastructure that currently limit evaluation and propose solutions. This will support institutions’ self-assessment, implementation, reporting and evaluation. She will also create tools for prospective higher education applicants, and those supporting them, to navigate the contextualised admissions landscape more easily.

Professor Mountford-Zimdars is determined to use this national platform to highlight the specific challenges faced by students in the West Country.

“National policy can sometimes overlook the ‘lived reality’ of students in regions where transport links, local infrastructure, and rurality create barriers,” she explains. “I am thrilled to be taking Exeter’s research excellence to the heart of national policy-making to ensure our region’s voice is heard at the highest levels.”