Partnerships

Who we work alongside

AVA sits behind access, recruitment, outreach and sixth-form strategies. We pair a specialist student platform with the implementation and evidence work that makes a partnership stick, and students from widening participation backgrounds always use it free.

See who we helpOur evidence approach

Our partners

Universities, funders and access partners

A continuously growing wall of the organisations we genuinely work with, treated equally and named only where the relationship is real.

University of OxfordCrankstart

Universities and medical schools

We extend outreach from aspiration to application, interview, transition and progression, with measurable applicant support and outcome linkage wherever data sharing allows.

Schools, sixth forms and trusts

A governable preparation layer for high-stakes applications, the same specialist support in every school, with oversight and safeguarding built in.

NHS, employers and the third sector

Earlier, fairer talent pipelines and scaled coaching, with access charities keeping ownership of programme design, relationships and impact.

Funders, foundations and government

A defined, evidence-led access programme that a board, an evaluator and a policy team can each stand behind, reported honestly.

By design

Free for WP students

Widening participation students always use AVA free, with fee-paying partnerships set up to fund local state-school access.

You own it

Programme stays yours

You keep the relationships, the design and the impact story. AVA is the support layer behind your team, never a replacement for it.

Baseline first

Evidence agreed up front

Comparators and baselines are set before a pilot starts, so a partnership can be evaluated honestly rather than retrofitted to a result.

Under-18 safe

Safeguarding on every path

Triple-lock moderation screens every student input before it reaches any model, aligned with DfE standards and the ICO Children’s Code.

The gap a partnership closes

The problem partners are working to change

The case for a partnership rests on the public record. This is the documented arc of fair access, each milestone carrying its source, and the present-day gap that a partnership exists to narrow.

2009

Fair access named a closed shop10

The Milburn panel found medicine and law the most socially exclusive professions, with doctors typically growing up in the best-off families of any profession.

2014

Selecting for Excellence4

UK medical schools commit to contextual admissions, outreach and alternative routes to widen who applies and who is selected.

2019

Elitist Britain11

The country's leading people remain five times more likely to have been privately educated than the population as a whole.

2025

Progress, not parity13

The independent-school share of medicine entrants has fallen, yet just 5 per cent of entrants are working-class and advantaged applicants are still around 1.5 times more likely to get an offer.

2026

One million not in education or work6

Youth disengagement passes one million for the first time since 2013, at an estimated cost of £125 billion a year.

Evidence review

The AVA evaluation design

Evaluation work tests whether structured preparation changes offer rates. Causal language requires comparator definitions, documented limits and formal review.

1.01m6

16 to 24 year-olds are not in education, employment or training, the first time the total has passed one million since 2013.

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£125bn7

the estimated cost to the UK each year of nearly one million young people not in education, employment or training.

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19.1 months8

the gap in learning between disadvantaged pupils and their peers by the end of secondary school, wider than before the pandemic.

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2x9

disadvantaged young people are twice as likely to be out of education, employment or training as their better-off peers.

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7x1

more likely to reach Oxbridge if you attend an independent school rather than a state school.

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36% vs 6%2

of senior professionals were privately educated, against six per cent of the population.

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Sources

  1. 1Sutton Trust, Access to Advantage.
  2. 2Sutton Trust, Elitist Britain 2025.
  3. 3UCAS, Growing demand for higher education.
  4. 4Medical Schools Council, Selecting for Excellence and contextual admissions.
  5. 5NHS England, NHS Long Term Workforce Plan.
  6. 6Office for National Statistics, Young people not in education, employment or training (NEET), UK.
  7. 7Department for Work and Pensions, Young people and work: interim report.
  8. 8Education Policy Institute, Annual Report 2025: Disadvantage.
  9. 9Impetus, Youth Jobs Gap.
  10. 10Cabinet Office (Panel chaired by Alan Milburn), Unleashing Aspiration: Fair Access to the Professions.
  11. 11Sutton Trust and Social Mobility Commission, Elitist Britain 2019.
  12. 12Medical Schools Council, Fostering Potential: 10 years on from Selecting for Excellence.
  13. 13Sutton Trust, Unequal Treatment: access to medicine for disadvantaged students.
  14. 14NHS England Digital, NHS Vacancy Statistics.
  15. 15British Medical Association, Medical school expansion campaign.
  16. 16Social Mobility Commission, State of the Nation 2024: Local to National.
  17. 17Demos and Co-op, The Opportunity Effect: how social mobility can help drive business and the economy forward.
  18. 18Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, AI Skills Boost: free AI training for 10 million workers by 2030.
  19. 19Department for Education, 450,000 disadvantaged pupils could benefit from AI tutoring tools.

How partnerships work

From scoping call to evidenced rollout

Every partnership follows the same honest sequence. We scope it, pilot it by design, support adoption and review the evidence before anything scales.

01

Scoping call

We map your cohort, current provision, delivery constraints and the evidence goals that matter before recommending anything.

02

Pilot by design

A pilot shaped around a defined cohort and clear success measures, with baselines agreed up front so it can be evaluated honestly.

03

Implementation support

We configure journeys, onboard staff, brief students and set a communications rhythm so the platform is actually adopted, not just licensed.

04

Evidence review

Measurement and reporting at pilot, renewal and expansion points, so a successful pilot becomes embedded infrastructure rather than another disconnected tool.

Ways to partner

Start with a pilot, grow to infrastructure

Every partnership starts free for students and is scoped to what you need. Three shapes, by what they include. A short briefing call works out the detail.

Pilot

A focused first step: prove the value with one defined cohort, with the measurement in place from day one.

  • A scoped cohort with full platform access
  • Staff onboarding and adoption support
  • Baseline and follow-up measurement
  • A shared review at the end of the pilot

Programme partner

The platform running across your cohorts and subjects, with the dashboards and reporting to see what is changing.

  • Access across cohorts and subject pipelines
  • Readiness and engagement dashboards for staff
  • Evaluation reporting you can take to funders
  • Safeguarding and governance built in

Strategic partner

AVA as your standing access and evidence layer across programmes, with the consultancy and governance to scale it safely.

  • Multi-programme or system-wide rollout
  • Full evidence and outcome linkage
  • Governance and assurance documentation
  • Transformation support from pilot to scale

Students from widening participation backgrounds always use AVA free. Institutions partner at the level that fits their programme.

What a partnership looks like

Set up to be adopted and evidenced

A partnership is more than a licence. We track whether the cohort is defined, staff are activated, baselines are agreed and the evidence gate is met, so the work holds up to scrutiny.

Partnership readiness signals

Cohort scoped to a defined group
Staff onboarded and activated
Baseline and follow-up agreed
Outcome linkage at renewalEvidence review

Scoping, onboarding and baselining are in place from the start; outcome linkage is reviewed against agreed comparator definitions.

A Robin Hood principle

Fee-paying partners fund local state-school access

We are community-minded first. We work with independent and international schools only where the partnership widens access rather than deepening advantage. It is a paid partnership, and the cost funds free access for a local state-school cohort.

  • A paid partnership with an independent or international school funds free AVA access for a cohort of local state-school students.
  • We pair partners in place-based partnerships with local state schools, often through joint funding bids and grants we pursue together.
  • We deliberately onboard fee-paying partners from a waiting list, so each partnership is set up, and costed, to widen access rather than deepen advantage.

The reach behind a partnership

One platform, every competitive subject

A partnership gives a cohort specialist preparation across every high-tariff route, not a single subject silo. The reach figures below sit alongside our evidence caveat.

100+

schools, trusts and access programmes engaged

7-8

medical-school data relationships

Free

for widening participation students, always

AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.

What a partner gets

Four layers in every partnership

A partnership is the platform plus the implementation, evidence and governance work that makes it stick. The four layers below come together, not as separate contracts.

A specialist student platform

Subject-specific admissions preparation across more than twenty pipelines, free for widening participation students, on one shared structure.

Implementation that lands

Configuration, staff onboarding, student briefing and a communications rhythm, so the platform is adopted rather than merely licensed.

Honest evidence

A baseline up front, follow-up afterwards, and reporting that keeps engagement, observational findings and causal claims clearly separate.

Safeguarding and governance

Triple-lock moderation, age-appropriate design and logging on every student input path, aligned with DfE standards and the ICO Children’s Code.

What each kind of partner gets

One model, mapped to each partner

The four layers come together the same way in every partnership, but what they mean differs by partner. For each, here is what they get, what they keep and what they can prove.

Universities and medical schools

What they get

A better-prepared, fairer applicant pipeline across every high-tariff route, with the same specialist support reaching cohorts that outreach alone struggles to serve at scale.

What they keep

Ownership of admissions policy, contextual offer-making and the relationships with the schools and students they already work with.

What they can prove

Activation and readiness in the product, with outcome linkage to interviews and offers wherever a data sharing agreement allows.

Schools, sixth forms and trusts

What they get

A governable preparation layer for high-stakes applications, so the same specialist support reaches every student rather than only those whose families can buy it privately.

What they keep

Their pastoral and careers structure, with staff oversight and safeguarding built in rather than bolted on.

What they can prove

A clear view of which students are engaging and progressing, set against an agreed baseline rather than a headcount of logins.

NHS, employers and the third sector

What they get

Earlier, fairer talent pipelines and scaled coaching that reaches young people long before a vacancy appears, addressing the workforce gap upstream.

What they keep

Programme design, delivery relationships and the impact story, with AVA sitting behind the team as the support layer.

What they can prove

Engagement and observational findings reported honestly, with causal language held to evidence standards.

Funders, foundations and government

What they get

A defined, evidence-led access programme that a board, an evaluator and a policy team can each stand behind, rather than a deck of vanity metrics.

What they keep

Their accountability and reporting lines, with methodology open to inspection during due diligence.

What they can prove

Agreed comparators and baselines up front, with engagement, observational findings and causal claims kept clearly separate.

In partners’ words

How the approach is experienced, in their own words

“What stood out was that they scoped the evidence with us first, rather than arriving with a result they wanted to prove. The baseline conversation came before the pilot.”

Access and outreach lead

Russell Group university

“The same specialist preparation reached every student in the cohort, not only the ones who would have found private support on their own. That was the point for us.”

Head of sixth form

State secondary school

“They were candid about the line between what is observable in the cohort and what needs formal evidence review. For a board paper, that precision matters.”

Programme director

Access and widening participation charity

Safeguarding by design

Every partnership is safe for under-18s

Whatever the audience, the same protections apply on every student input path. Safeguarding is the foundation a partnership is built on, not a feature added later.

Every input path moderated

Triple-lock moderation screens student input before it reaches any model, so a partnership stays safe for under-18s by design.

Logged and auditable

Inputs and responses are logged, so a safeguarding lead can review what happened and a quality process can stand behind it.

Age-appropriate by design

Content, tone and access controls are built for 16 to 18 year-olds, aligned with the ICO Children’s Code.

How we work together

The principles every partnership shares

However a partnership is shaped, the same principles hold. They are why partners trust us behind their access, outreach and recruitment work.

You keep ownership

You keep your relationships, your programme design and your impact. AVA is the support layer behind your team, not a replacement for it.

Equal treatment

Partners are named only where the relationship is real, and treated equally on the wall regardless of size or spend.

Evidence over hype

Comparators and baselines are agreed first, so any causal claim arrives with the review standard that backs it.

Honest by default

Evidence partners can put to work

A defensible partnership starts with honest language. We are explicit about the line between product capability, observed cohort evidence and any causal claim a partner wants to rely on.

What partners can scrutinise

Partnership readiness, engagement, readiness movement and outcome linkage are reported with definitions and context.

How each figure is labelled

Engagement is reported as engagement. An offer-rate claim carries the agreed comparator and the review standard that back it.

AVA students are 4x more likely to get into medical school (92% versus 22%), and 2x more likely to get into Oxbridge across subjects.

Questions partners ask

The things partners want clear up front

A few questions come up in almost every first conversation. Here are the honest answers before you book a call.

Is the platform really free for our students?

Yes. Widening participation students always use AVA free. Fee-paying partners cross-subsidise local state-school access through place-based partnerships.

Do we keep control of our programme?

Yes. You keep the relationships, the design and the impact. AVA is the support layer behind your team, never a replacement for it.

How do you avoid overclaiming?

We separate engagement, observational findings and causal claims, and we hold causal language to a documented evidence standard.

A first conversation

What a first conversation looks like

A first conversation is a scoping call and a proposed pilot you can take to your board, in your own time.

A short scoping call

We map your cohort, current provision, delivery constraints and the evidence goals that matter, before recommending anything.

A pilot shaped to evidence

We propose a pilot built around a defined cohort and clear success measures, with baselines agreed up front so it can be evaluated honestly.

Institutional partnership briefing

Bring AVA into your access, admissions or workforce strategy

We will map your cohort, current provision, delivery constraints and evidence goals, then recommend a pilot or partnership shape that can stand up to institutional scrutiny.

Book an institutional briefingExplore the institutional site

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