Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether there is an external right of appeal for people who believe they have been discriminated against when applying for doctorates at universities in the UK.

Higher education providers (HEPs) are autonomous from government and are responsible for their own admissions decisions. The department has no legal remit to become involved in disputes between prospective students and their university.

Responsibility for handling applicant complaints and/or appeals, in the first instance, is a matter for the relevant HEP and each university has formal complaints and appeal processes.

If a complainant has exhausted the official process and the matter has not been resolved to their satisfaction, they are free to consider bringing a claim for judicial review or for discrimination under the Equality Act.

Another route available to dissatisfied applicants is through the higher education regulator, the Office for Students (OfS). While the OfS cannot become involved in individual complaints, applicants can notify the OfS if they think that a university has broken its conditions of registration.