Our centre
Research
Our cutting-edge research seeks to inform evidence-led policy and practice to equalise opportunities.
Activities
CEPEO Annual Lecture
Policymakers, researchers and practitioners explore the pressing questions of our time in education policy and equalising opportunities.
CEPEO Seminar Series
The Centre for Education Policy and Equalising Opportunities (CEPEO) hosts an online research seminar series, where guest speakers present cutting edge research.
COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities Study (COSMO)
This major new youth cohort study is providing vital new evidence on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected socio-economic inequalities in life chances.
Outputs
Working papers
Our working papers demonstrate our research in progress. They are multidisciplinary, reflecting CEPEO's broad research themes.
Briefing notes
Summaries of evidence on questions related to CEPEO’s four research themes.
Impact
The aim of our policy priorities is to offer evidence-led, practical steps to move towards a society of more equal opportunities from early years to adulthood.
Our goals
We are one of the most unequal countries in the developed world, in terms of outcomes and opportunities.
Our multidisciplinary work seeks to reduce these inequalities:
- We identify barriers to opportunity in under-explored areas, using innovative methods and thinking, and co-producing evidence-led policy solutions to reduce barriers to opportunities.
- We offer insight and impact at every stage of the life course, through the centre’s four main research streams: early years, schools, tertiary, and adulthood.
Our approaches
- We research previously unanswerable questions, through innovative data collection and analysis.
- We evaluate policies and programmes by designing, implementing, and analysing Randomised Control Trials (RCTs) and Quasi-Experimental Designs (QEDs).
- We address novel questions in under-researched areas using existing large scale data from administrative sources, and from our rich birth cohort studies.
More about our approaches.
Latest news
Navigating the economics of UK higher education
Delving into the economic factors influencing universities today, including the implications of tuition fee policies and the structure of student loan repayments.
30 Jun 2025
IOE education experts join newly established DfE Science Advisory Council
Three IOE academics are among a team of 12 independent experts appointed to the UK government Department for Education's newly established Science Advisory Council.
29 Oct 2024
Social segregation increases where primary free schools open
On average, social segregation of students has increased in neighbourhoods where mainstream primary free schools opened, and neighbouring schools have lost students, finds IOE researchers.
19 Aug 2024
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Contact us
Department of Learning and Leadership
UCL Institute of Education
University College London
20 Bedford Way
London, WC1H 0AL
