There are cold spots in arts, humanities, and social sciences provision

Amid the complex global conflicts and societal challenges of today’s world, access to all subjects – especially to SHAPE subjects (social sciences, humanities and arts for people and the economy) – is increasingly important.

These subjects give students deep understanding of human behaviour, culture and society at a crucial time.

But access to humanities, social sciences and arts subjects at university is not always equal. A new project from the British Academy is mapping where in the UK students can access these subjects in higher education.

It's all over the map

The first resource in this project is an interactive map that tracks the UK’s subject cold spots, meaning areas where students have limited access to certain SHAPE subjects – especially students who do not achieve top grades. This map gives a visual sense of changes to the availability of subjects by region over the past decade.

The map uses the latest data from the HESA, and it shows that, on the current trajectory, we may be at risk of subjects like French, theology, and anthropology becoming the preserve of students with higher grades, or students who are more able to travel farther away from home to study. Research from the Sutton Trust in 2018 found that more than half of all students choose to study close to home, especially those from disadvantaged or minoritised backgrounds. Disadvantaged students are much more likely to opt to study close to home; they are also much less likely to achieve top grades than their more socioeconomically advantaged peers. That makes strong and consistent regional access to all subjects extremely important; all students should have the opportunity to receive the benefits of higher education.

So, what are we defining as a SHAPE subject cold spot? We have taken it to be an area of the UK where a student would need to travel more than a commutable distance – we’ve said 60km or further – to learn their chosen SHAPE subject at university or another undergraduate education provider. This first map can only show us so much; it doesn’t capture the full picture of student access to places of study, such as transport links, accessibility needs, or subjects offered at individual multi-campus institutions. After all, 60km might be a commutable distance in one part of the country but an impossible commute in others.

What this map does is offer a starting point for understanding where provision may have increased or decreased over time – or in some cases, where it is no longer possible for a student to study their subject of choice, according to the most recent data.

Looking at changes to subject provision over this period tells a multiplicity of stories. Worryingly, some parts of the UK are cold spots for many SHAPE subjects and tariffs. These places often correspond to low socio-economic and "left behind" demographics. French studies for example, which includes French language, appears to have less geographical spread in 2022 compared to 2011. Many other languages tell a similar story.

For anthropology in the 2022-23 academic year, there were large cold spots in Scotland, northern England, the East Midlands and Wales. In contrast, the map suggests provision for subjects like finance, law and sociology has spread further across the UK over the same period. This reflects a wider expansion in higher education numbers over the decade, but one which has not been spread equally across different subjects.

Grade expectations

An important feature of the maps is the ability to filter by UCAS tariff. This allows us to see how provision is dependent on student grades, identifying areas with limited or possibly no provision of particular subjects for students with below-average tariff scores. Applying this filter to theology and religious studies, for example, our map shows that large areas of Scotland, northeastern England, East Anglia and Devon and Cornwall do not have a local higher education provider offering this group of subjects to students with lower grades – whereas without the filter, provision seems to be fairly balanced across the UK.

Our cold spots map is the first step in our SHAPE mapping project. We are building a suite of interactive maps looking into social sciences, humanities and arts provision in higher education. These resources will chart changes over the decade between 2011/12 to 2022/23, the most recent available data. The maps will be updated annually, allowing us to monitor the health of our disciplines in UK higher education through the British Academy’s SHAPE Observatory.

Cold spots in SHAPE subject access matter. These subjects play a vital and vibrant role in university life, developing critical thinking and other crucial skills for today’s workplace. They contribute enormously to the UK economy, fueling our vital creative industries and the services sector. A lack of access to these subjects can limit the skills and local opportunities for students – especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Disparities in subject provision also restrict the ability of universities to contribute to much-needed skills and knowledge bases in their region – an important part of their offering to their local communities.

We are all aware of the spate of reported departmental closures and contractions in SHAPE subjects across UK universities in recent years, a result of mounting and unsustainable financial pressure. While it is not the Academy’s role to comment on decisions taken by independent institutions, we are committed to doing all we can to speak out about the impact on our disciplines, demonstrate their value to the economy and to society and present evidence about their evolving health.

The government has said it wants to break down barriers to opportunity and tackle regional inequality. As the National Academy for our subjects, we stand ready to work with decision makers and providers to help meet these challenges head on.