Exeter professor takes South West voice to the heart of university admissions reform

Professor Anna Mountford-Zimdars will undertake an 18-month secondment with Transforming Access and Student Outcomes in Higher Education (TASO), the national evidence hub for higher education policy.

The Exmouth Journal reports that the project will focus on “contextualised admissions”, which consider a student’s background and life circumstances alongside their academic results.

The research will explore how fair and effective these admissions practices are across England.

Professor Mountford-Zimdars said: “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.

“This fellowship is about making the system fairer, ensuring that talent in Devon has the same opportunity to thrive as talent in London.”

She hopes the work will improve access to higher education for students in rural and coastal communities across the South West.

As part of the fellowship, she will spend part of each week working at TASO’s London office. There, she will collaborate with policymakers, including those at the Department for Education.

During the 18-month project, she will map existing contextualised admissions practices across England. She will also examine how effective they are in widening participation.

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According to The Exmouth Journal, she will develop a model to measure the impact of these practices, identify gaps in data and propose improvements.

Professor Mountford-Zimdars is based at the University of Exeter and chairs its South West Social Mobility Strategy Group.

She is also currently coordinating an exam centre pilot for home-educated students in partnership with Devon and Cornwall County Council.

The project places Exeter at the centre of a national conversation about fairness in higher education.

For students in Devon, it could mean future admissions systems that better reflect individual potential beyond exam grades.

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