Dr Neil Harrison
Associate Professor in Education and Social Justice, Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter
Dr Neil Harrison is Associate Professor in Education and Social Justice in the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter.
Prior to becoming an academic, Neil worked in widening participation and as a student services manager. His involvement with care leavers dates back to the early 2000s, when he put together a programme to encourage greater collaboration between universities and local authorities. He later served eight years on Bristol City Council’s Corporate Parenting Panel and two years as a governor of the ‘virtual school’ in Bristol.
More recently, Neil was the author of NNECL’s ‘Moving on Up’ report. Published in November 2017, this was the first examination of the pathways into and through higher education for care-experienced students using the large-scale national datasets that are available for England.
Neil previously worked at the Rees Centre, University of Oxford, from 2018-2022, the University of the West of England (2000 to 2018) and the University of Kent (1994 to 1999). Neil is also an elected member of the governing council of the Society for Research into Higher Education.
