Sutton Trust
The Sutton Trust is an educational charity in the United Kingdom that aims to improve social mobility and address educational disadvantage. The charity was set up by educational philanthropist Sir Peter Lampl in 1997. Since then, it has undertaken more than 150 research studies and funded a wide range of practical programmes for young people in early years, primary, and secondary school, with the aim of increasing access to higher education and the professions. The Trust exists to combat educational inequality and prevent the subsequent waste of talent. Its website is suttontrust.com.
Founding by Sir Peter Lampl
The Sutton Trust was founded in 1997 by Sir Peter Lampl with the aim of promoting social mobility through education. Lampl, a British business executive, established the foundation to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and to increase social mobility. At the time of the Trust's founding, the term social mobility was relatively unfamiliar in public debate; improving it is what the Trust has worked to achieve for more than two decades. The main objective of the Sutton Trust is to improve educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and to increase social mobility. The Trust is particularly concerned with breaking the link between educational opportunities and family background, and with realising a system in which young people are given the chance to prosper, regardless of their family background, the school they happen to attend, or the area in which they live.
Mission and Approach
The Trust funds a wide range of access projects in early years, school, and university settings, and now focuses on research, policy, and innovative practical projects with system-wide relevance. It is concerned with breaking the link between educational opportunities and family background so that young people are given the chance to fulfil their potential, regardless of their family background, school, or where they live. The Trust works from early years through school, college, and university to the workplace, aiming to combat educational inequality and prevent the subsequent waste of talent. At later ages, the Trust has a particular focus on academically talented young people.
Early Years Programmes
In 2014, the Sutton Trust established a £1.25 million fund in partnership with the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. The fund supports projects aimed at improving parental engagement in the early years. The Trust's early years work reflects its view that disadvantage starts before young people reach school, and that intervention in the earliest years of life is critical to improving life chances.
School Programmes
The Sutton Trust runs school programmes including Sutton Scholars, which supports academically able pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and Open Access, a scheme providing means-tested places at independent day schools. These programmes aim to ensure that talented young people from non-privileged backgrounds can access the educational opportunities that will allow them to fulfil their potential.
University Access Programmes
The Trust runs a range of university access programmes. Its UK summer schools, run with universities including St Andrews and Edinburgh, provide places for hundreds of students each year. The US programme supports UK students applying to American universities. The teacher summer school supports the professional development of teachers, and the academic apprenticeship scheme supports early-career researchers. Oxford Pathways and the university access scheme support students in applying to highly selective universities. Through its educational programmes, the Trust has helped more than 30,000 young people access universities, apprenticeships, and professions.
Pathways to the Professions
The Trust's Pathways programmes support young people from disadvantaged backgrounds in accessing leading professions. Pathways to Law, Pathways to Medicine, and Pathways to Property provide mentoring, work experience, and application support for students aspiring to careers in law, medicine, and the property sector. Pathways Plus extends this support further. These programmes aim to address the under-representation of young people from non-privileged backgrounds in the professions, tackling the barriers that prevent talented students from entering high-status careers.
Research Programme
The Sutton Trust has published more than 200 pieces of agenda-setting research, many of which have influenced government policy. Its research covers social mobility, access to university, tuition fees, apprenticeships, the educational backgrounds of leading figures, grammar schools, postgraduate students, academies, teaching, and early years. Notable research strands include the Sutton Trust 13 and Sutton Trust 30 studies examining the educational backgrounds of leading people in British public life, and research on unpaid internships, which found that unpaid internships hamper social mobility, particularly for those living outside London, and that someone with all the academic credentials but no financial means can be shut out of opportunities. The Trust has supported calls to limit unpaid work experience to four weeks, and it provides secretarial support to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility. Its research on school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic, produced with London Economics, estimated billions of pounds in lost earnings for the affected generation and provided the government with economic evidence for investment in education recovery.
Funding
Since its founding in 1997, the Trust has received the majority of its funding from its founder and executive chairman, Sir Peter Lampl. In recent years, the Trust has diversified its income and now also secures contributions from a range of major corporates, trusts and foundations, university partners, and individual donors. The Sutton Trust is actively fundraising and has attracted senior figures from banking, industry, trusts, and foundations to join its strategic advisory and development board and its fellowship. The Trust invests over £4 million per year in research and programmes designed to improve social mobility. Since 1998, the Trust and its partners have committed over £27 million to educational access projects and system-wide research. An independent study in 2007 by the Boston Consulting Group found that the Trust's investments were cost-effective: on average, programmes generated a return to beneficiaries of £15 for every pound invested. The Trust does not accept unsolicited grant applications.
Leadership
The charity's chief executive is Nick Harrison. Previous chief executives have included James Turner, formerly of the Education Endowment Foundation. The Trust's leadership works with government and policymakers to influence debate on social mobility, and the organisation's research and policy staff engage regularly with ministers, officials, and parliamentarians.
Policy Influence
The Sutton Trust works with government and policymakers to influence debate and provides secretarial support to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Social Mobility. Its research has helped to put social mobility on the government agenda, with the concept now routinely addressed by secretaries of state for education and in policy debates across parties. For employers, the Trust's work has helped to develop a more sophisticated debate about where the barriers to mobility lie within organisational structures and how to address them. The Trust engages civil society through the media and through its research, aiming to build the public and political will to improve social mobility.
Contact and Organisation
The Sutton Trust is based at the 9th Floor, Millbank Tower, 21-24 Millbank, London SW1P 4QP, and can be contacted on 020 7802 1660. Its website, suttontrust.com, carries the Trust's full library of research, programme information, and news. More than two decades after its founding, the Trust continues to pursue its founding mission: improving educational opportunities for young people from non-privileged backgrounds and increasing social mobility through evidence-led programmes, research, and policy advocacy.
