From Evidence to Impact 2026 – Policy and Practice Insights from ACSES

Foreword

This is the first edition of From Evidence to Impact from ACSES, and as the Centre’s Executive Director, it is my pleasure to commend it to you.

Australia has made significant commitments to equity in higher education, but commitment without evidence to act upon is insufficient. This publication shows what rigorous, practice-connected research looks like.

As a What Works centre, we are under an obligation to distil quality research and evidence into tangible tools and messages that people in our universities can use. From Evidence to Impact is a good example of that responsibility in action, and it will be followed by future editions.

The aim is to inform Australian universities on their journey to better student outcomes for their underserved communities. This means communicating effectively with university leaders and governing bodies, those teaching and learning in our institutions, professionals supporting students facing barriers, and those responsible for shaping an effective and equitable national higher education system.

In the past three years, ACSES has invested resources and its own expertise in various grants and fellowships that cover the full range of student equity challenges facing us.

What has been learned, and what should be taken forward into policy and practice? Six messages stand out:

• The Australian Universities Accord has set ambitious participation targets. Meeting them requires understanding not just who is missing from higher education, but why, and what actually works.
• Equity is not a niche concern, the students from equity backgrounds represented in this research are increasingly the majority of Australian higher education enrolments.
• Across different topics and methods, the studies point towards a recurring finding: structural and institutional change matters far more than changing individual students.
• Financial hardship, from placement poverty to food insecurity to housing costs, emerges as a persistent, underacknowledged barrier.
• Belonging is not a soft outcome. It is a requisite for success that is often overlooked, and has to be deliberately designed and resourced.
• Students appear here not only as subjects of research but as co-researchers, advisors, and advocates—that too is a finding worth noting.

Taken together, this collection represents a step in an ongoing process of building and applying evidence to improve student outcomes. I encourage readers to engage with the findings, explore the full reports where relevant, and consider how this work can inform policy and practice in your own context. The challenge now is to continue strengthening the connection between evidence and action in pursuit of a more equitable higher education system.

Professor Shamit Saggar CBE FAcSS
Executive Director
Australian Centre for Student Equity and Success

The full report is available for download in PDF [7 MB].