The University was highly commended in two categories - Innovation of the Year, and University of the Year.

Social Mobility Awards success

Life-changing work by the University of Exeter to support disadvantaged young people has been recognised at awards which honour excellence in promoting social mobility in Britain.

The mission of the UK Social Mobility Awards is to promote the issue of social mobility and best practice, highlighting and celebrating those organisations and businesses who have made significant achievements in embedding social mobility as a core business strategy. This year’s awards were held on 8 October 2020 at an online gala. 95 organisations entered the Awards this year, and there were over 300 participants in the online gala.

The University was highly commended in two categories - Innovation of the Year, and University of the Year - in the UK Social Mobility Awards. University colleagues work with several thousand pupils and their teachers each year and help them achieve their potential via outreach activities to widen participation in higher education. The University was among the first to take contextual information into account in admissions other than just qualification results and has achieved sustained improvements in the diversity of its study body. Almost a quarter of UK undergraduates come from low income families. It also has some of the highest rates of retention, attainment and progression to graduate employment. Read more about the UK Social Mobility Awards.

Sir Kenneth Olisa, Chair of the judging panel, said of the awards: “I wanted to extend our collective congratulations to ALL of the nominations. We should all celebrate living in a country where so many leading organisations have taken social mobility so seriously.”

Date: 23 November 2020