Student standing in library

Today the Rt. Hon John Glen MP has announced that TASO has been awarded funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund (EAF) – administered by the Cabinet Office – for a new project to understand what works in supporting student wellbeing and mental health in higher education.

The new project – which will open for tender in early April – will test the impact of interventions run by higher education providers to support student wellbeing. The project will focus on interventions that have been prompted by analytics systems and internal data on student engagement, such as attendance at lectures. Analytics are increasingly being used to spot early warning signs for students struggling with their studies or mental health.

Dr Omar Khan, Chief Executive of TASO: 

“We are delighted to receive funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund to carry out this vitally important work. Recent years have seen a rapid increase in students reporting mental health concerns. Yet we still lack evidence on what works to support these students. I hope this new project will provide some answers about how universities and colleges can best support student mental health and wellbeing.”

TASO proposes to evaluate a range of wellbeing interventions prompted by analytics. The overarching research question is: what impact do student-support/wellbeing interventions prompted by analytics have on student outcomes?

We will select up to three higher education providers to work with an independent evaluator to run randomised controlled trials. The trials will look at existing or new interventions planned to be run from September 2024 in higher education providers. The project will run from May 2024 to March 2025.

Interested in learning more about the project?

Find out more and register your interest for the upcoming invitation to tender.

This project will build on TASO’s existing work on Learning Analytics, Institutional Data Use and our Student Mental Health Evidence Hub – a free online resource to strengthen the effectiveness of student mental health support.

The EAF supports evaluation across government to transform understanding of the impact of activity in priority policy areas. The fund aims to accelerate evaluation activity and create actionable evidence in HMG priority areas and tackle evidence gaps.