Experiential learning has become a major agenda in higher education over the last five years: it is either embedded, or currently being embedded, in almost all programmes across QMUL in line with the Active Curriculum for Excellence approach (ACE), the Student Experience Enabling Plan and the new QMUL Employability and Skills Framework. The benefits of experiential learning have been established for some time (Kolb 1984; Jonathon and Laik 2024) and the field has been heavily theorised (Bhajantri et al. 2016), but there remain multiple approaches to the design and delivery of such programmes in practice at QMUL and beyond. Moreover, we continue to know very little about the (in many cases hidden) barriers to participation in experiential learning and attendant issues of inclusion. Through student feedback, the project team have some knowledge of barriers relating to finances (e.g. associated travel costs – see below) time (e.g. those with employment or caring responsibilities) and culture (e.g. incompatibility with religious observations, anxieties and exclusions based on ‘social capital’).

This project attempts to (i) generate data which surfaces these and other unknown barriers and issues (ii) develop resources that support the design and delivery of inclusive experiential education (iii) create a community of practice across QMUL and its partners which establishes us as a sector-leader in inclusive experiential learning. This project addresses the barriers, exclusions and inequities that students and educators experience in experiential learning.