What is Study Higher and Uni Connect?

Study Higher is one of 29 partnerships that form the Uni Connect programme (formerly known as the National Collaborative Outreach Programme NCOP). Each partnership is made up of universities, schools, colleges and other organisations (such as employers and charities) in a specific region of England. Funded by the Office for Students (OfS) the key aim of the programme is to support those statistically less likely to progress into Higher Education (HE) for a variety of reasons.

Uni Connect aims to run until July 2025 and more information along with a list and map of partnerships can be found on the OfS website. 

Study Higher is based at Oxford Brookes University, and Oxford Brookes will be the Data Controller of any personal data that you supply to Study Higher. This means that they will make the decisions on how your data is used and for what reasons. 

You can contact Study Higher, including our monitoring and evaluation team, by email: info@studyhigher.ac.uk

What will Study Higher be doing?

Study Higher is undertaking and helping to deliver a wide range of outreach activity in schools, colleges and through community groups, to help young people better understand their future educational and employment choices so they can make an informed, and the best, decision for themselves.

For example, this may mean that Study Higher staff members come to your school and facilitate a study skills workshop, or you may be invited to participate in a mentoring programme, or given information about other activities and events like summer schools and open days.

As well as working directly with students and young people, Study Higher will also be working with teachers, parents, and relevant people (for example, careers advisors and community leaders). In the case of parents/carers we may ask for contact information so we can send relevant information and we will ask for child/children’s details, such as name and date of birth, so we can monitor if they take part in one of our activities.

 Why do we need your data?

The aim of Study Higher is to support young people to progress into HE and/or make the best individual decisions about what to do when leaving school. To know whether we are meeting this aim we need to collect information about you when you take part in our activities and events so that we can find out what you do next and in your future employment and educational outcomes to see if we’ve helped.

A number of national organisations also routinely collect personal information about young people, such as the Department for Education, UCAS, and the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). We will be using such sources of data to track and look up your educational and employment outcomes in the future. To be able to do that we need some of your personal information for those organisations to be able to find and match student records. For example, we need your name and date of birth so that we know we have the right person’s record.

Oxford Brookes’ legal basis for collecting this data is:

• Public task – We process and share personal information in the exercise of our day to day business as a University.  We use the information to report on this project which is undertaken to support a Government run initiative. Reporting this information is necessary to meet the conditions of our funding by the OfS.
• Oxford Brookes will use personal data which you have knowingly made public.
• Where the University processes special category personal data (such as racial or ethic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, personal information about health) for research or statistical purposes for this project, we rely on the lawful basis under Article 9(2)(j) in accordance with Article 89(1) of the UK GDPR and Schedule 1 part 1(4) of the Data Protection Act 2018.

As part of our on-line forms and on-line registrations we would like to collect a range of demographic and personal sensitive data about you. This includes:

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Postcode
• School
• Gender
• Receipt of Free School Meals
• In Care and Young Carer status

as well as special category personal data, including:

• Disability status
• Racial or ethnic origin

If you provide consent for us to use your image or to participate in video footage: 

Your image may be used as outlined in the consent form which you have signed and for no other purpose.

Who will Oxford Brookes share your data with?

The personal data that we ask you for, such as name, date of birth, and your home postcode, we will use to link your information to data held in national datasets so that we can see whether our activities have an effect upon your later educational and employment outcomes. As part of our evaluation, and the wider Uni Connect evaluation, your data may be shared with:

• The Office for Students (OfS) – OfS are the national funder of Uni Connect, of which Study Higher is one of the consortia in the programme. We may need to share data with the OfS as part of our regular reporting process. OfS privacy notice can be found here.
• The Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) – Study Higher uses the HEAT service and database (www.heat.ac.uk) to record information about the activities we deliver and the people who take part in them. HEAT helps us to identify which activities are most helpful in preparing students for future educational steps, such as going to higher education, and their progression into employment. The HEAT privacy notice can be found here.
• The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) – a national charity who collects data from universities and FE colleges about who is registered on programmes of study and also surveys graduates about their future employment outcomes. The HESA privacy notice can be found here.
• National Pupil Database (NPD) – this is the central database of the Department for Education for all pupils in England, which schools students are currently and have been enrolled in, along with what qualifications students have gained. The NPD privacy notice can be found here.
• University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) – a charity who manages University and HE applications. The UCAS privacy notice can be found here.
• SEER (Applied Inspiration)- an organisation commissioned by Study Higher to analyse and evaluate the impact of our outreach.

We also occasionally share data that we collect with delivery partners, in the following ways:

• Ipsos Mori – additional Uni Connect national evaluator. The Ipsos Mori privacy notice can be found here.
• Villiers Park Educational Trust – a charity who are delivering programmes in the Swindon area on our behalf, we need to share data to monitor who participates in the programme and any feedback. The Villiers Park Educational Trust privacy notice can be found here. 
• Study Higher partners and associate partners, full list can be found here – we will be sharing information with partner organisations to monitor who participates in the activities and any feedback that is received.

We will regularly produce summary reports for all our partners and funders who we are working with and we may share some of these on our website, but we won’t include your name or anything that would easily identify you as an individual. Sometimes we may use a quote, taken from any written feedback you provide in surveys etc., but, if we do, we won’t include your name or anything that would easily identify you as an individual

Will Oxford Brookes University transfer my data outside of the UK?

We will store information about you on Google Drive or the HEAT Database.

Google does store information outside of the UK. Details can be found on the Google Privacy Notice here.

HEAT stores data in the UK. The HEAT Privacy Policy is here.

What rights do I have regarding my personal data that Oxford Brookes holds?

• You have the right to be informed
• You have the right of access to your data
• You have the right to correct data if it is wrong
• You have the right to ask for your data to be deleted
• You have the right to restrict use of the data we hold
• You have the right to data portability
• You have the right to object to Oxford Brookes using your data
• You have rights in relation to using your data for automated decision making and profiling

Your rights will depend on the legal basis used to process your personal information. These legal bases are detailed above. 

Are there any consequences of not providing the requested data?

No. There are no consequences to you not providing data, nor are there consequences for asking for your data to be deleted or changed in the future.

Will there be any automated decision making using my data?

No.

How long will Oxford Brookes keep your data?

Uni Connect and the Study Higher programme are anticipated to finish in July 2025.

Study Higher is using the Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT) to help us link to large administrative datasets, and our partner universities also use this system (Oxford Brookes University, University of Oxford, Buckinghamshire New University, and University of Reading). Once the Study Higher programme is complete each of our partner universities will retain a copy of your data in HEAT so they can continue to follow your progress when the project ends. For more information about HEAT and how it uses your data please go to: www.heat.ac.uk

Any other data that has been supplied to Study Higher will be securely deleted/destroyed at the end of the programme.

Who can I contact if I have concerns?

You can contact Study Higher, including our monitoring and evaluation team, by email: info@studyhigher.ac.uk

You can contact the Information Security Management team by email: info.sec@brookes.ac.uk

You can contact the independent Brookes Data Protection Officer by email: BrookesDPO@brookes.ac.uk

Details of the national regulator may be found at ico.org.uk