Supporting students to realise their ambitions
Introduction
Despite more underrepresented students going to university than ever before, getting a good degree is not always enough to secure a top graduate-level job.
Students from lower socio-economic backgrounds or dealing with challenging personal circumstances often don’t have equal access to professional networks, career advice, work experience or other CV-enhancing extra-curricular development opportunities.
While our graduates enjoy excellent progression outcomes, we provide a variety of support and tailored schemes to ensure all students are able to realise their potential regardless of background, networks and connections.
Paid internships benefit students and employers
The Access to Internships (A2i) Scheme is specifically designed to empower students from under-resourced backgrounds to build the skills and experience essential for their future careers.
A2I supports widening participation students and graduates to arrange paid internships in the UK and secure their first step onto the career ladder with the support of a dedicated Careers Consultant.
In 2024/25, the scheme enabled 129 students from widening participation backgrounds to undertake paid internships in 2024/25, helping them gain valuable graduate-level experience. To further support access, 41 bursaries of £250 were awarded to assist with travel, accommodation, and other internship-related costs.
The programme is specifically designed to empower students from under-resourced backgrounds to build the skills and experience essential for their future careers. Among the participants: 40% were from low income households; 49% disclosed a disability and 27% came from areas with low participation in higher education.
“A2i gave me the chance to lead a real project, build confidence, and connect with professionals; it turned out to be one of the most rewarding parts of my university experience.”
A2i intern.
Future improvements will focus on enhancing the administration and communication of the scheme to ensure continued success and accessibility.
Feedback
Student feedback via an end of internship survey demonstrated students felt the scheme had enhanced employability and confidence, with all recipients recommending it for eligible students.
90% improved their communication, teamwork, and problem-solving skills.
90% felt their job prospects had improved through CV development and interview preparation.
90% gained clarity on the skills and career options available to them.
94% reported increased overall confidence.
Employers also reported positive outcomes from hosting interns.
95% said their intern worked well within the team.
89% felt tasks were completed to a high standard.
89% noted interns helped progress projects that might otherwise have been delayed.
92% agreed their intern made a positive contribution to the organisation.
of those surveyed said their employability skills had improved following their internship.
agreed the internships helped them feel more confident about securing a graduate job.
agreed the experience will help them during the interview process for future jobs.
agreed the internship has helped inform their career plan and they feel positive about future career opportunities.
International experience builds career confidence
The Global Leaders scheme aims to provide students with international experiences to build their employability and career confidence.
“I feel much more confident in speaking to new people and those who are higher than me. I have also become more open-minded about the career I could partake in the future.”
Participant, The Hague, 2025.
“It has given me the confidence to put myself out there and into situations that I may not feel comfortable in, knowing I can collaborate and work with others even when they are strangers!”
Participant, UNITAR 2025, Paris & Bonn.
Students, who might otherwise be unable due to personal or financial circumstances, to engage in study or work abroad, are provided with the opportunity to build employability skills and network with employers within an international environment. In the 2024/25 academic year, we delivered a total of six Global Leaders experiences: two online and four in-person events across six countries.
To help address graduate outcome disparities for students with disabilities and those from low-income backgrounds, we implemented targeted marketing and tailored support for these groups. This strategic focus significantly increased the number of applicants and shortlisted candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.
Among the 76 widening participation students who participated in-person, many met multiple criteria of under-representation in higher education. Notably, disability markers accounted for the highest proportion of participants at 46%, a substantial rise from 20% in 2023/24. A higher proportion of students from low income backgrounds took part, with 36% qualifying for Access to Exeter bursary compared with 23% the previous year.
Surveys before and after Global Leaders, demonstrated that students who completed an international experience reported improvements in career-related skills and confidence.
Students have also expanded their networks and secured employment through these international partnerships. Notably, five Exeter alumni have joined the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) through internships or full-time roles, including two in 2024/25. At the European Association for International Education (EAIE) conference, up to six students are annually invited back to support future cohorts in paid roles, gaining valuable experience that strengthens their graduate job prospects.
Table below shows growth in skills and confidence reported by students taking part in Global Leaders (change from pre-programme questionnaire).
Widening participation in postgraduate study
Actions to improve diversity and inclusion in Masters and PhD study at Exeter in recent years have put us in a good position to respond to Government proposals to extend regulatory scrutiny to cover postgraduate education.
The University established a working group now jointly led by senior academic leads for postgraduate taught programmes and research as part of its Success for All programme which has been working institutionally and with national partners to improve representation and outcomes for students from widening participation backgrounds.
Understanding our students is fundamental to supporting them effectively. We have developed a new postgraduate data dashboard which provides, for the first time, clear visibility of widening participation trends across different stages of postgraduate study.
Working with colleagues in Business Intelligence, we’ve established which equity markers are meaningful at postgraduate level and begun tracking progression patterns from undergraduate to postgraduate study. Early analysis reveals that while disabled students and those from ethnic minority backgrounds show strong progression rates overall, the intersection of disability with low income or ethnic minority status significantly reduces the likelihood of entering postgraduate study — insights that directly inform our interventions.
Our action plan focuses on raising awareness of the benefits and career opportunities linked to postgraduate study and addressing risks to equal opportunity affecting access and success. Practical initiatives launched this year include video resources demystifying postgraduate study, profiles of students from widening participation backgrounds, podcast diaries featuring both students and staff sharing their research journeys, networking masterclasses, and enhanced careers support. We’ve expanded postgraduate recruitment activity on the Penryn Campus and integrated postgraduate opportunities into existing support structures like the Career Mentor Scheme.
Across the sector, institutions are grappling with how to move beyond “pockets of good practice” to systematic approaches for postgraduate widening participation. Through active participation in the NEON Widening Participation in Postgraduate Study working group, we’re contributing to national conversations about admissions practices, contextual data, and effective service delivery models. We played an instrumental role in developing a self-assessment tool that enables institutions to reflect on and improve their postgraduate student support. This collaboration ensures our approaches are informed by sector-wide best practice while allowing us to share our own learning — particularly around the infrastructure needed to support evidence-informed decisions and the information, advice and guidance gap at postgraduate level.
As regulatory expectations evolve the foundations we have built — robust data, evidence-based interventions, and cross-institutional collaboration — will support efforts to enable all students irrespective of background to access and succeed within postgraduate study at Exeter.
Focus on disability, neurodiversity and mental health
Staff and student input is helping to improve our employability support for neurodivergent and disabled students.
“It has given me the confidence to put myself out there and into situations that I may not feel comfortable in, knowing I can collaborate and work with others even when they are strangers!”
Global Leaders’ participant, Bonn 2025.
“I have been at assessment centres in the past which have not given me any reasonable adjustments so just wanted to feedback for future assessments that this was really useful and hope this is kept in place for future applicants too.”
Student, MSc Sustainable Development.
A focus of our new Access and Participation Plan is to address gaps in graduate outcomes for students with disabilities and mental health conditions, which can be observed at both institutional and sector level.
We have good foundations in place to support this work with initiatives already in place such as the Neurodivergence Working Group which was established by the Student Employability and Academic Success team in 2022 to seek advice and guidance from people with shared experience to help shape careers support services. The group is made up of a student representative and staff who are openly neurodivergent.
Adjustments have already been made across much of our provision to make schemes and services more accessible. These include changes to our Global Leaders programme which provides students with international skills development experiences, such as:
- Providing a room for students who seek a quiet and relaxing space
- Transport subsidies for those who cannot walk for extended periods of time or need to sit down frequently
- Providing more detailed itineraries such as suggested travel routes, schedules and places to eat
- Specific reminders and check-ins for those who struggle with time-keeping
- Liaising with partners, hotels and travel providers to ensure a cool area for medication
Create Your Future (CYF) is an employability programme tailored to individual disciplines, integrated into the first-year curriculum. The programme is designed utilising universal design for learning principles to improve accessibility for disabled students. CYF supports students to explore their values and motivations. We discuss Disability Confident Employers, disclosing a disability and reasonable adjustments during the recruitment process. This also serves to inform neurotypical students about the barriers some of their peers may be facing that they are not.
The Professional Pathways programme is a suite of sector specific training courses and paid 35-hour internships that takes place annually. Training is delivered by industry experts, to provide students with a firm grounding in the relevant sector. We offer personalised support for disabled students during the recruitment stage, including Assessment Centres, as well as throughout the training week.
We have also sought to embed disability friendly initiatives across the whole of our careers provision. New initiatives include:
- Introducing quiet 30 minutes across the whole suite of Careers Fairs at both Streatham and Penryn campuses
- ‘Neurodiversity in the workplace’ session delivered as part of Student Employment Week and supported the University’s Neurodiversity campaign week
- Disability Confident Employers are highlighted on our Handshake system which support students at all stages of preparing and looking for work.
- Questions about individualised learning plans and reasonable adjustments are embedded within our triage process
“Thank you for your thoughtfulness and care with meeting with me before the trip. I really appreciated it and it definitely has helped me with my experience declaring my disability in a career setting.”
Global Leaders’ participant, Paris 2025.
“Can I also just say how amazing you have been accessibilities wise – I’m so impressed with the level of support you are offering me and it’s making me feel so much more relaxed (and excited) for the assessment centre. I cannot thank you enough.”