AN excellent research report surfaced this week on the success or otherwise of attempts to get more students from disadvantaged backgrounds into university.

I say “surfaced” because, while the Strathclyde University paper was completed in autumn last year, it effectively gathered dust for a few months before getting noticed by another academic who helpfully signposted me to it through social media.

While this affords a welcome if accidental exclusivity to The Herald’s subsequent coverage I’m not quite sure that’s the way these things should work.

Across the educational spectrum there have been significant concerns from august bodies such as Audit Scotland, the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the OECD that not enough Scottish research is available on the progress of key policies such as the roll-out of the school curriculum or the implementation of college mergers.

In that context it was welcome that the Scottish Funding Council commissioned Strathclyde’s School of Education to look at widening access, but the failure to publicise the subsequent report somewhat undermines that positive intent.

In this case the report’s findings were well worth bringing to wider public attention.

Recent statistics have shown just how far institutions have to go to meet ministerial targets for one fifth of students entering university by 2030 to be from Scotland’s 20 per cent most deprived communities. Currently, the proportion is just a tenth.

Amongst the interesting points raised in the Strathclyde report is the growing use of higher education courses at Scottish colleges to facilitate wider degree-level study.

Researchers noted that, while there is a clear financial benefit to being a university graduate in terms of lifetime earnings, there is no evidence to suggest whether the “graduate premium” applies to college students.

The report also found that, while exam success is a significant barrier to disadvantaged students, no studies have been commissioned to look at improving secondary school attainment with the explicit aim of widening access.

Further gaps in knowledge were identified in the effectiveness of university policies to look at the wider achievements of applicants rather than just their exams and the Scottish Government’s desire to see entry requirements lowered for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

One categoric conclusion from the report was that more funded ring-fenced places for poorer students would be required in future if national targets are to be achieved.

Ministers funded a three-year programme of extra places which saw thousands of additional students from deprived backgrounds recruited, but universities are now expected to pay for these places out of wider funding which is under increasing pressure from cuts.

It is to be hoped the conclusion that additional ring-fenced protected university places would be needed at a time when they were being “embedded” in wider funding had nothing to do with the lack of publicity afforded to this report.