We offer a range of free opportunities, learning resources and events to widen access and participation in higher education. This allows us to support young people’s aspirations and contribute to raising attainment.

We receive funding from the government from The Office for Students (OfS) which requires us to report the engagement of children and young people part of our Access and Participation Plan (APP). The data is securely stored with government organisations and only used for research purposes. It also allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the important work we do as part of our government policy to widen participation in higher education.

We would like your permission to use information in the consent form and feedback so that we can see whether our activities have an effect upon your later educational and employment outcomes. Also, allowing us to continue offering free events supporting young people’s aspirations.

• Full name
• Date of Birth
• Postcode
• Email
• School or College
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Would you be the first person in your family to go to university?

We ask for some of this information for the purpose of monitoring and the evaluation of underrepresented groups, or subgroups and the access, success and progression through Higher Education.

As part of our evaluation, and wider Uni Connect evaluation, your data may be shared with:

• The Office for Students (OfS)
• The Higher Education Access Tracker (HEAT)
• The Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
• National Pupil Database (NPD)
• Universities and Colleges Admissions Services (UCAS)
• CFE Research (Uni Connect national evaluator)
• Aspire Higher Partners (University of Hertfordshire & University of Northampton)

HESA and HEAT may share your data as detailed in their own privacy notices, which are accessible at the links provided:

• Privacy notice for HEAT
• Privacy notice for HESA

We will collect and process this data which will be stored on a database in accordance with the Data Protection Act, the General Data Protection Regulations and any resulting legislation, and used to administer participation in the activity attended.

The University of Bedfordshire Access Partnership Programme will not use its records in any way which will affect any learner individually. We will not disclose any data to anyone who is unauthorised to receive it.

If you or your child has attended any event or activity, we will only retain certain information that we need for the purpose of event or activity administration for as long as necessary to serve that purpose. 

In order to conduct long-term evaluation, tracking and research we will retain some of your information as follows:  

• Until the end of the academic year in which you reach the age of 30 (or, if you are a mature student, for 10 years from the point you provide it).  
• If you enter Higher Education within this time, until 15 years after you graduate.  

After these periods, any personal information will be removed from our records, but we may continue to retain and process your information in an anonymised form.  

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and legislation you have the right to a copy of the data held by us about you. If you have any concerns or would like a copy of the data you have supplied directly to us, requests should be made in writing to: 

The Data Protection Officer, University of Bedfordshire, University Square, Luton, Bedfordshire, LU1 3JU.