NERUPI Convention 2025: Collaboration for Widening Participation: Within and beyond Higher Education
Date: 18th September 2025
Location: Friends House, Euston Road, London NW1 2BJ
Please note this event is for Members only
The move towards increased collaboration and regional organisation for widening participation initiatives announced by the OfS in June 2025 opens up a range of opportunities for higher education. This new approach to partnerships could support a shared national purpose by coordinating the work of providers in tackling local and regional challenges to achieve a greater collective impact. The possibility of more productive links with employers and communities, support for collaborative work with younger age groups and enhanced careers provision would all be facilitated. But at times of change it is also vital that we recognise and learn from the success of existing partnerships.
The NERUPI Convention will give you the opportunity to:
engage with wider perspectives on regional development
increase your understanding of OfS intentions and requirements
consider ways to retain existing partnership activities
explore strategies for developing new collaborative initiatives
John Blake, Director of Access and Participation OfS will discuss the importance of recognising the unique circumstances and socioeconomic realities of place, as well as autonomy and ownership of the local community, in widening participation work. He will consider regional differences in HE participation and how we can better incentivise effective outreach. He will also discuss next steps for our regional access partnerships work following the recent call for evidence. Professor Joyce Liddle from Durham University will provide a keynote talk that draws on her many years of experience and engagement as an academic and policy/practitioner in regional development. She will use the session to set widening participation, knowledge exchange and collaborative partnerships for place transformation in a context of civic and place leadership role for HEIs. In the evolving, highly fragmented devolutionary landscape of regional and local growth, Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCAs) are expected to drive leadership in collaboration with other agencies, including HEIs.
Expert Panel
We will also hear from an expert panel with a range of insights into regional working in Widening Participation. The panel will include: Dr Jo Davies from the University of Bath who will draw on research to highlight the importance of ensuring a fairer geographic distribution of WP opportunities; Vicki Spink, HEPPSY UniConnect will share their region's strategy for building enduring partnerships;Scott Atkinson, Education Programmes Manager at the Royal Academy of Engineering, will consider the importance of networking in regional projects and Dr Femi Owolade, Sheffield Hallam University, will be exploring how HEIs can align their WP efforts with the civic university mission to create more inclusive and locally responsive partnerships.
Sharing Practice
We know that NERUPI members already have established partnerships and collaborations so sharing these will be a particularly important element of this Convention as we move into a new era of partnership working. Presentations from members and posters from UniConnect colleagues will capture existing activity and provide firm foundations for the future.
Fleur Middlebrough, University of Salford - Collaborative online international learning within assessment
Laura Johnston, Bath Spa, and Rachel McCulloch, Southampton Solent - Steps for Success: Supporting college to university transition
Laura Bradnam, Birkbeck, University of London - Fake or Real News? Adult community workshops
Marta Almeida Hill, University of Kent - Collaboration with schools through sponsorship of a Multi Academy Trust
Jade Wigley and Nina Cupric, University of Staffordshire - Staff-Student co-created programmes for racial equity and neurodiversity
Isobel Kane and Anna Flatt, University of Suffolk - The impact of micro-placements on neurodivergent students and their employers
Chuanyan Zhu, University of Salford - A collaborative model for capturing WP impact
Emma V Watson and Shreya Sivadhass, Imperial College London - Combatting Maths Anxiety : Working with primary schools in West London
Katarina Blanco, Manjula Modhwadia and Christine Khalil, University of East London - Supporting young independent people in higher education
Bilal Hazzouri, Anglia Ruskin University, Chloe Cheetham and Emily Magrath, IntoUniversity- Enhancing metacognitive skills in primary learners
Emily Scott and Tamara McNeill, Oxford Brookes University and Mauricio Rivera, University of Sussex - Establishing an APP evaluation community of practice
Toby Pallatt, Anglia Ruskin University - The risk and successes of Anglia Ruskin University’s Outreach programmes
Julie Vuolo, University of Hertfordshire - Collaborative working to drive improvements in WP practice
Practical Workshop
The day includes a practical workshop session on developing a regional APP led by Sam Dunnett, Head of WP at Sussex and the Sussex Learning Network who will explain how they aligned APPs and targets, developed plans for evaluation and strategies for building knowledge through partnership.
Tickets are £180 per person. To reserve your place please use the booking form below at the bottom of the page. You will be sent a booking confirmation and a link to our online shop where you can complete the payment.
For this year only the Convention is open to non-member UniConnect representatives offering a poster sharing one of their successful collaborative projects.
We have allowed two places per organisation but please book by 28th July to secure your places as the NERUPI convention is very popular, with some organisations wanting to send several people. If more than two people want to attend do let us know as we will keep a waiting list and release places on the 28th July.
Speakers Biographies
John Blake new
John Blake
Director for Fair Access and Participation, Office for Students
John Blake is the Director for Fair Access and Participation. He oversees the Office for Students' activity on equality of opportunity in universities and colleges, helping to ensure that all students, especially the most disadvantaged, benefit from higher education. He is also responsible for student insight, information and engagement; OfS policies on distributing £1.4bn of state funding to higher education institutions, and OfS's work on lifelong learning, including flexible and diverse pathways into and through higher education.
John took up his position at the Office for Students in January 2022. Prior to joining OfS, he was a senior leader and researcher in the schools sector, leading on public affairs and curriculum research and design for Ark, policy and strategy for Now Teach and History initial teacher education for the Harris Federation. He has also worked as Head of Education and Social Reform for the think tank, Policy Exchange, was a founder governor of Oak National Academy, and served as an advisor to the government on reforms to initial teacher training and continuing professional development.
Joyce Liddle
Joyce Liddle
Professorial Fellow, St Chad's College, Durham University
Professor Joyce Liddle has a distinguished academic background having worked at national and international levels in the fields of urban and regional development, public policy, entrepreneurship, leadership and management. Much of her research and consultancy work has been undertaken in North East England addressing economic and social policy issues in collaboration with local and national politicians, and public, private, voluntary and community organisations.
Joyce was educated at Durham University in politics and sociology, studied for a PhD at the Local Government Centre, Warwick University and went on to hold the position of Course Director in post graduate Management Studies at Durham Business School. Subsequently, Joyce held Professorial, management and research posts in seven UK Universities including Sunderland, Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside, Nottingham, Nottingham Trent University and in Aix-Marseille, France.
Her international reputation is reflected in advisory roles for ministers and civil servants in Italy, Finland, the West Indies and China as well as holding Visiting University Chairs in six countries. She also developed education and training programmes for public and civil servants in South Africa, Bahrain, France, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Ethiopia.
Drawing on a successful track record in securing UK Research Council and other research funding she has published over 250 articles, 45 book chapters and written and co-edited some sixteen books as well as fulfilling a number of editorial roles for journals and book series.
Joanne Davies
Dr Jo Davies
Lecturer and Research Associate, University of Bath
Dr Jo Davies has worked in the widening participation field for over a decade, initially as a practitioner and more recently as a researcher. She started at the University of Bath in 2017, first completing a PhD examining the role of place in access to the UK’s elite universities for English-domiciled entrants and more recently working as a Research Associate for two UKRI-funded research projects. The first of these explored the geography of labour market returns to Further Education. The second ongoing project - From the Centre to the Periphery - led by Prof Michael Donnelly, seeks to evaluate the UK government’s Opportunity Areas programme (2017-2022) which focussed on improving young people's outcomes in 12 social mobility cold spots across England.
Vicki Spink is a strategic leader in higher education with over a decade of experience advancing equity and access for underrepresented learners. As Head of HeppSY (Higher Education Progression Partnership South Yorkshire), she leads the Uni Connect regional outreach programme delivering impactful interventions and shaping inclusive education strategies. At Sheffield Hallam University, she co-leads the Access and Participation Plan (APP) workstream for Black students, driving institutional change. Her expertise spans national programmes, stakeholder engagement, and innovative outreach design, all underpinned by a deep commitment to social mobility. Vicki also brings governance experience from both mainstream and alternative education settings and holds a Master’s in Education.
Scott Atkinson
Scott Atkinson
Education Programmes Manager, Royal Academy of Engineering
Scott Atkinson is the Education Programmes Manager at the Royal Academy of Engineering. He leads school based engineering initiatives across the UK, including the national Connecting STEM Teachers programme, which he managed from 2017 to 2023. This initiative supported STEM subject teachers and leaders to engage more pupils in STEM education and raise awareness of engineering as a career.
In 2024, Scott launched This is Engineering Schools: Scotland, a pilot programme working with 50 primary and secondary schools across Aberdeenshire and Glasgow City. The programme aims to strengthen links between schools, local businesses, and the wider engineering community, and to inspire students aged 9 to 14, particularly those from underrepresented groups in socioeconomic disadvantaged areas to pursue STEM pathways beyond the age of 16.
Dr Femi Owolade is a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University specialising in civic engagement, place-based collaboration, and inclusive education. His work focuses on how universities can build meaningful partnerships with communities to advance the civic university mission. Femi contributes to the National Civic Impact Accelerator (NCIA) programme, supporting universities to embed civic purpose in their strategies and practice. He is Associate Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
Femi holds an LLB in Law from Kingston University and completed a PhD in Legal History at King’s College London. Subsequently, he worked as a researcher in the Widening Participation department at King’s, leading several outreach projects. He has also served as a governor at Forge Valley School and was a committee member of History Lab Plus, supporting early career historians.
Click here to see if your organisation is already a member. If so you can benefit immediately - fill out the form below to get access.
Benefits of membership:
Free attendance at expert workshops combining presentations on key issues for widening participation with practical sessions focussed on developing members’ own evaluation resources
Access to resources and tools from the members' only section of the NERUPI website including presentations from past events, member case studies and a range of academic articles
A Framework that supports you in meeting the evaluation 'self-assessment' requirements of UK regulators from strategic planning through programme and evaluation design and implementation to informing practice through learning and reflection
Engagement in working groups to develop members’ expertise and capacity in evaluation approaches and methods
A community of practice in WP evaluation and opportunities for collaborative projects
Participation in the annual NERUPI Convention providing opportunities for members to present their findings, develop the Framework and keep up to date with national developments.
The Memorandum of Understanding can be downloaded here and further legal information, including our privacy policy is here.
For more about NERUPI, membership or any of our events please contact us at nerupi@bath.ac.uk.
