Invitation to tender3 February 2025
TASO is seeking to appoint at least two higher education providers to work with an independent evaluator to test the impact of interventions designed to support student success through randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-experimental designs (QEDs). QEDs rely on naturally occurring or constructed treatment and comparator groups rather than achieving this through random assignment.
Each impact evaluation will be accompanied by an implementation and process evaluation (IPE) which will use quantitative and qualitative data to determine who the intervention works for, in what situations it works and why it works (or doesn’t).
TASO will select partner providers based on factors including feasibility of the intervention for testing, how widespread/scalable the approach is, and the availability of (suitable and sufficient volumes of) data for quantitative impact evaluation. Due to the timeline of the project, we will be evaluating new or existing interventions that start being delivered in the 2025 autumn term.
Suitable interventions include but are not limited to the below list:
- Curriculum-based interventions such as changes to teaching, assessment or content.
- Support for students’ transition into higher education and between stages within HE.
- Interventions prompted by learning analytics systems.
- Financial support such as income-contingent bursaries.
- Mentoring/coaching.
- Work experience or placements.
Eligibility criteria for higher education providers
- The lead applicant must be a registered English higher education provider in the approved (fee cap) category.
- Applications involving programmes or interventions that are delivered collaboratively across multiple higher education providers, or with other organisations, are welcome.
Available funding
At least two participating providers will each receive up to £35,000 to support the resourcing of the project.
- Up to £10,000 will be provided to participate in the inception and scoping phase, and to collect and share the outcome data with the appointed evaluator.
- Up to £25,000 will be provided if the provider wishes to carry out the IPE to cover, for example, staffing costs for a research assistant.
Project timings
- The application process (see below) will be in two stages, and the deadline for the initial round of applications is 13:00 GMT 7 March 2025.
- The project is likely to start with a scoping phase in June to September 2025, before moving on to data collection from September/October 2025.
- The length of the project will depend on the interventions being evaluated but could run for one academic year with interim reporting in March 2026 and final reporting in early 2027.
How to apply
- For more information on the project, including the requirements and deliverables, see ‘How to apply: full guidance‘.
- Once you have gathered the information required for the first round please submit this using our online form by 13:00 GMT, 7 March 2025.
- From the applications submitted in the first stage a shortlist of the most feasible interventions will be drawn up and those providers will be invited to submit a full application (deadline 13:00 GMT+1, 6 May 2025).
- Please note, we will not be able to provide specific feedback for unsuccessful applications from stage 1.
- Please also complete the equality, diversity and inclusion monitoring form. This is for internal monitoring purposes only and will not impact the tender decision.