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Widening Participation and Access

The University of Birmingham commits to widening participation and improving access.

Our Outreach department works with over 250 schools and 25,000 pupils each year to raise aspirations and encourage students to make educated decisions about their future in higher education. The department delivers an extensive School visit programme of activities, working with students from year 6 to year 13.

Our long-standing Access to Birmingham (A2B) scheme continues to provide fair access for local students applying to the university. The year 12 programme Routes to the Professions and our pre-16 Forward Thinking programme are also amongst our leading, most popular initiatives. Our support extends beyond the West Midlands; our Contextual Offer scheme provides alternative offers for candidates across the UK who meet the requisite criteria.

The University of Birmingham has published an Access and Participation Plan (APP) with the Office for Students (OfS) that defines our commitment to widening participation and lists our progress objectives in supporting key under-represented groups in higher education. We aim to improve access, provide equal opportunities and enable progress through higher education. The 2025-26 to 2028-29 University of Birmingham Access and Participation Plan (PDF - 2.10Mb) is available to download and view. Download and view a summary version of this plan (PDF - 288Kb).

The APP replaces previous Access Agreements, which remain in force for students who started, or start, their university course before September 2020. Previous Access Agreements, as well as our 2022-23 course fee information, are available to view using the following links: