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Generating Genius is a leading charity providing a pipeline for African Caribbean students to reach top universities studying STEM courses. Their aim is to collaborate with universities to establish a training academy for young people who are nurtured over a five and two year period through the Junior Genius (aged 12-plus) and Uni-Genius (aged 16-plus) programmes.

The funding was used to graft Generating Genius' good practice and methodology onto the working vision of widening participation teams in universities, helping them to develop a commissioning model for the third sector.

Outreach Methodologies

Generating Genius worked with the widening participation teams in the universities of Southampton, Leeds and Oxford, initially holding a conference at each university to explain the charity's methodology and best practice template.

Following these conferences, a period of conceptual development emerged from the universities where they began to think around the talent development of African Caribbean students and an acceptance of the need to use a commissioning model to target such students, with formal agreements due for the 2012 - 2013 academic year. 

How other organisations could adapt the model

The model really challenges institutions who ‘forget’ their core purpose or who might be pushed by government policy / ideology to drift outside of their expertise. This has implications for Primary schools, who are often tempted into initiatives around social mobility, obesity and emotional development of children when they need to focus on teaching and learning. There is evidence of Secondary schools complaining that the children they receive in year 7 are ill-prepared for the academic demands of Secondary school.  The talent development model could be used to get a closer link between Secondary and feeder primaries, with Secondary school teachers taking some lessons in Primary schools and Primary school teachers visiting Secondary schools to understand the destination of their pupils. 

The model, although targeted at African Caribbean students, could be used to give a focus to white working–class boys, who also have poor access to Universities.

Find Out More

You can find out more about the project by reading their final report below, or by heading to their project web-pages.

Generating Genius Final Report