Support to succeed and progress

Edinburgh Cares is a student-lifecycle approach to supporting students who are care-experienced, estranged from their families and/or students with caring roles and responsibilities.

It involves student community building, informal peer support networks, support to access services within and outside the University.

• Since it began 63 care-experienced and estranged students have been matched with trained, volunteer staff mentors as part of the Edinburgh Cares mentoring programme.
• There have been 300+ hours of face-to-face appointments with students since September 2021.
• We have published research in partnership with students and research team led by Dr Emily Taylor in the School of Health in Social Science: ‘Voices of Care-Experienced and Estranged Students at the University of Edinburgh, 2022’.

Established in early 2021, this network has more than 100 members throughout the college. Membership includes both staff and students and brings together a community to discuss and address the issues faced by those from widening participation backgrounds.

In April 2023, the CAHSS WP Network, in collaboration with the student society Tackling Elitism, successfully ran a “Widening the Student Network” event with funding from the Student Partnership Agreement. The event brought together around 50 staff and students from across the College and wider university for panel discussions, interactive stalls and networking. It aimed to raise visibility and provide a space to discuss experiences of staff and students from WP backgrounds.

EdBudds is a bespoke peer support model developed to meet the needs of students within the School of Education where traditional models of peer support don’t fit due to long placements undertaken by students on their programmes. EdBudds involves all students in the journey to the University, throughout their four years of study and continuing their involvement as alumni.

• There are currently up to 400 students supported across MA (Hons) Physical Education, creating a community of students working together across year groups.
• The model fosters a complete sense of community and inclusion and provides numerous platforms for support at any stage.

PTAS aims to encourage and support activities that will make a significant contribution to the enhancement of learning and teaching. There are currently more than 20 PTAS-funded projects that have a widening participation theme.

Case study 1: The School of History, Classics & Archaeology received funding to gather evidence of students’ perceptions on the extent to which they felt part of the student community and to identify ways to address this. The findings have been disseminated at School level and beyond at the Learning and Teaching Conference and in meetings with staff involved in other widening participation activities across the University.

Case study 2: The School of Informatics received PTAS funding to develop an informatics tutor network for young people in schools from deprived communities. The project trained current informatics students as tutors and linked them with S4/5/6 tutees undertaking National 5, Higher and Advanced Higher Computer Science.

In 2020 the University launched the new Access Edinburgh Scholarships, which support low-income and care-experienced and estranged students. Eligible recipients receive up to £5,000 per year during their studies.

• Since 2020 more than 5,000 undergraduate students have benefitted from the Access Edinburgh scholarship and have received more than £13.7 million in financial support.
• In 2022/23 more than 2,500 undergraduate students received more than £6.7 million via the Access Edinburgh Scholarship.
• In 2021 undergraduate students at the University were the first recipients of our new scholarships for disadvantaged black students: the Cowrie Scholarship Foundation and the Andrea Levy Scholarship.

The Insights programme launched in 2017/18 and introduces students from widening participation backgrounds to Edinburgh alumni in the UK and around the world. Since then, more than 600 undergraduate students have benefitted from it – gaining confidence and skills, exploring a range of careers and meeting Edinburgh alumni working in a range of sectors.

• The programme is majority funded by alumni donations and generously supported by the global alumni body through hosted visits from alumni volunteers.
• Students are more likely to consider an international career and to actively seek internships as a result of taking part in the Insights programme.

I credit a lot of my success to my Global Insights trip to New York in 2019, as well as the work of the Widening Participation team at the University of Edinburgh. The confidence and skills I gained… has been invaluable.

Olivia Jarvis