The UK is among the most geographically uneven advanced economies globally, with significant disparities in economic activity and growth between regions (McCann, 2020), particularly when comparing London and the South East to the rest of the country (Savage, 2015). There is growing concern about the most peripheral regions and local economies, especially post-industrial, coastal, and rural areas. Some former industrial areas in the UK have yet to fully recover from deindustrialisation, particularly as concerns their local skills base, and it is here that some of the most striking geographic gaps in education can be seen. For example, in many London boroughs, almost 70% of people have a degree level qualification. In comparison, in coastal towns like Blackpool, post-industrial localities like Doncaster and rural places like North East Lincolnshire, this is less than 20% (Office for National Statistics, 2021).  

The UK government’s Opportunity Areas programme (2017-2022) aimed to improve young people's life chances across 12 social mobility cold spots nationwide. The ‘From the Centre to the Periphery’ project, a major three-year quasi-experimental evaluation of the impact of this programme, began in October 2024. Working in close partnership with stakeholders, it seeks to help shape the evolution of the government’s ongoing Priority Education Investment Areas programme and to inform the design of future place-based education and labour market initiatives. 

Given the project’s recent start, our data collection and analytical work has only just begun - the findings of which we hope can be the subject of a paper at a future ECER conference. This paper will instead focus on the relationships and knowledge exchange activities we have and continue to build with our stakeholders – a further key element of our project. We will discuss our learnings from our stakeholders to-date, most notably from our project launch event held in December 2024, and the vital importance of these as we advance with our work.  

Moreover, geographical disparities in access to education and opportunity are far from limited to the UK, with the US, Australia and many European countries experiencing similar issues (e.g. see Sá et al., 2007, Parker et al., 2009; Spiess and Wrohlich, 2010; Hillman, 2016) and implementing similar policy initiatives to the UK government’s Opportunity Areas programme to address these. For example, in France, “les territoires éducatifs ruraux” (the “rural educational localities” programme) - an initiative focussed on strengthening local educational support networks, broadening the study/work opportunities open to local young people, and providing greater Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for the local professionals working with them (Ministère de l’éducation nationale, 2024).  

In line with the theme of ECER 2025, we hope that in sharing our project learnings and progress to-date with our presentation attendees and seeking their feedback, their diverse perspectives and pertinent experiences can further enable us to best chart our way forward. 

Close partnership with stakeholders is a key element of the ‘From the Centre to the Periphery’ project. Accordingly, our first priority was to organise a project launch event with stakeholders. This took place on 2nd December 2024 at the Museum of Making, Derby Silk Mill and was attended by more than 40 individuals from a broad range of relevant parties, including some of the key architects of the Opportunity Areas programme at the UK government Department for Education, educational leads from relevant Local Authorities, chairs and members of the independent Opportunity Area boards, local school leaders and third sector actors, and young people benefitting from the intervention. The launch event generated some vital learnings for the project and the establishment of important relationships crucial to the project’s success. To ensure that the momentum and engagement from stakeholders that our launch event generated is maintained, a blog post detailing our learnings from the event was published shortly after the event and shared with relevant individuals, and a mailing list established to share regular project updates. Planning has further begun for our next national dissemination event scheduled for Spring 2025 where the initial findings from our first, ongoing quantitative phase of research will be shared. We will further continue to engage stakeholders through avenues including: A stakeholder forum – an online forum to share information and exchange ideas with project partners as the evaluation develops Annual policy roundtables – to gain more focussed input and perspectives from project partners (with leading educational think tanks and social mobility organisations also invited) Community events – to gain local interpretations and perspectives on our findings as the evaluation progresses

Our project launch event in December 2024 generated several important learnings for ensuring a fair and effective evaluation. For example, it highlighted several important facets to and limitations of the Opportunity Areas programme design, including each area’s autonomy to address their own local priorities and that each area was awarded the same level of funding (around £6 million) despite significant differences in population size. There was also insightful discussion of key contextual differences between the Opportunity Areas, for example, as to their very different local geographies, the fact that some areas had similar initiatives to those of the OA programme running concurrently, and the highlighting of the differential impacts of the Covid pandemic upon each of the Opportunity Areas. These learnings are already being accounted for in the ongoing first, quantitative phase of our data work and will continue to feed into future analytical work. Several important areas of focus for the project’s subsequent qualitative work were also highlighted. For example, how to maintain and enhance local educational partnerships – for many delegates the key legacy of the Opportunity Areas programme – and how to achieve greater devolution so that these local partnerships can have greater influence and control over future place-based initiatives and ensure that local priorities are best addressed. To ensure that the key role of stakeholders within our research is maintained throughout the 3-year project, we will remain attentive to their feedback, continuing to use the learnings from our project launch, as well as those from future stakeholder events and engagement to shape our evaluation and our recommendations for the evolution of ongoing and future place-based initiatives.

Hillman NW (2016) Geography of College Opportunity: The Case of Education Deserts. American Educational Research Journal 53(4): 987-1021. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831216653204 McCann P (2020) Perceptions of regional inequality and the geography of discontent: insights from the UK. Regional Studies 54(2): 256-267. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1619928 Ministère de l’éducation nationale (2024) Les Territoires éducatifs ruraux. Available at: https://eduscol.education.fr/1029/territoires-ruraux-et-de-montagne?menu_id=1233 (accessed 27 January 2025) Office for National Statistics, 2021. Census 2021. London: Office for National Statistics Parker PD, Jerrim J, Anders J and Astell-Burt T (2015). Does Living Closer to a University Increase Educational Attainment? A Longitudinal Study of Aspirations, University Entry, and Elite University Enrolment of Australian Youth. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 45(6): 1156-1175. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0386-x Sá C, Florax R and Rietveld P (2006) Does accessibility to higher education matter? Choice behaviour of high school graduates in the Netherlands. Spatial Economic Analysis 1(2): 155–174. https://doi.org/10.1080/17421770601009791 Savage M (2015) Social Class in the 21st Century. London: Pelican Books. Spiess CK and Wrohlich K (2010) Does distance determine who attends a university in Germany? Economics of Education Review 29(3): 470–479. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.10.009