Meet the Team

Our interdisciplinary research team brings together expertise in education policy, sociology and geography from three leading UK universities (Bath, Bristol and Durham). This collaboration combines deep knowledge of educational and spatial inequalities with robust methodological approaches to provide a comprehensive evaluation of the Opportunity Areas programme.

Professor Michael Donnelly

Professor of Education and Social Policy University of Bath

Michael is based at the University of Bath and is the Principal Investigator for this project. He has expertise in the sociology of education and social mobility. He has been awarded an ESRC Future Research Leader Award and currently leads two ESRC-funded projects examining contemporary social change through higher education.…

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Professor Nadia Siddiqui

Professor of Education Durham University

Nadia is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, whose research focuses on educational equity and overcoming barriers to education. Her work uses large-scale data to inform national and international education policy across England, Pakistan and India. With several hundred…

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Professor Ceri Brown

Professor of Childhood, Inclusion and Education Policy University of Bath

Ceri works at at the University of Bath and is a Co-Investigator for this project. She has expertise in education policy analysis and community engagement research. Her acclaimed book ‘Educational Bind of Poverty: The Lives of School Children‘ was shortlisted for the prestigious Radio 4 Thinking Allowed Ethnography Awards. Her…

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Professor Matt Dickinson

Professor of Economic and Social Policy University of Bath

Matt is affiliated with the Institute for Policy Research at the University of Bath, where he leads the programme of research on widening participation in higher education. He is also a Co-Investigator on this project. Matt’s research focusses on economic of education, social mobility, and applied micro econometrics. Current projects examine…

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Professor Nick Pearce

Professor of Public Policy University of Bath

Nick is based at Bath University, where he is also Director of the Institute for Policy Research (IPR), taking a lead on research, teaching, policy programmes, and public engagement efforts. He is also a Co-Investigator on this project. His research focusses on welfare state reform, the political economy, British politics,…

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Professor Richard Harris

Professor of Quantitative Social Geography University of Bristol

Richard is based at the University of Bristol and has expertise in quantitative research methods, social geography, spatial analysis, geographic data science and quantitative geography. He is a Co-Investigator on this project. As Director of the South West Doctoral Training Partnership and former founding Director of the University’s £1.3 million…

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Dr Elle Young

Postdoctoral Research Associate Durham University

Elle works at Durham University where she serves as the Research Associate for this project. She recently completed her PhD which explored young women’s resilience and mental well-being in informal settlements in New Delhi using arts-based and participatory approaches. Her research interests centre on interdisciplinary issues related to inequalities, particularly…

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Dr Jo Davies

Lecturer and Research Associate University of Bath

Jo is based at the University of Bath, where she also serves as a Research Associate in the Department of Education. Her work, informed by her doctoral research, examines inequalities in access to elite universities, with a particular focus on how place influences young people’s educational trajectories. Her research interests…

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Dr Chris Cunningham

Research Assistant University of Bath

Chris is located at the University of Bath and recently completed his PhD in Sociology at the University of Essex. His research uses policy and discourse analysis to explore the relationship between widening participation within English universities and political narratives of social mobility.

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