What does Brilliant Club do?
The Brilliant Club exists to increase the number of pupils from under-represented backgrounds who progress to highly selective universities. We do this by mobilising the PhD community to share their expertise with state schools (ie public schools in the US) in ways that support pupils to develop the knowledge, skills and ambition to progress to higher education.
Founded in 2011, the charity has two main programmes. The Scholars Programme places PhD students in schools part-time to deliver university-style tutorials to talented pupils. It is the only non-university intervention that is systematically delivered by PhD researchers.
Our second programme, Researchers in Schools, places PhD graduates in schools full-time as trainee teachers and champions for university access. To the best of our knowledge, it is the world’s only teacher training programme exclusively for PhD graduates.
Last year, The Brilliant Club placed 600 PhD researchers in 300 schools across England, reaching more than 8,000 pupils, making it the largest university access programme in the UK.
Our goal is to make our programmes available to all schools in the UK and to deliver significant outcomes for pupils so that every school wants to work with us.
Why are you interested in franchising overseas?
The gap in university access between rich and poor is a problem not just in the UK but across the world. At the same time, many countries have thriving higher education sectors with significant numbers of PhD researchers. This presents an opportunity to use PhD researchers as part of the solution – to match demand and supply.
We also believe there is something universal about linking talented pupils with PhD researchers and about bridging the gap between school and university. This approach helps pupils learn by providing an enriching academic challenge and by broadening their horizons through an authentic experience of university learning.
We are interested in supporting the development of Brilliant Club-style programmes overseas because we think PhD researchers are uniquely placed to support children to learn and because the model is broadly replicable.
How are you exploring this prospective expansion?
We started by discussing it with our board of trustees, particularly on the question of whether the initiative would be more effective within the charity or as a sister organisation. We concluded that a separate organisation set up to facilitate the establishment of new programmes, rather than to deliver them directly, would be the most likely to succeed. Called AccessEd, its mission is to support social entrepreneurs to develop Brilliant Club-style programmes.
There are certain core principles we seek in potential partners, including a focus on pupils from under-represented backgrounds and a commitment to mobilising the PhD community. However, we are excited to see how the programme might need to adapt to succeed elsewhere.
For example, our work in Washington DC is being led by a former tutor in the UK, Dr Tania Nguyen. Her research into university access in the US has led to the pilot emphasising the skills needed to graduate university, not just to enrol. Having attended this year’s Going Global Conference in Cape Town, we are also looking for potential partners in South Africa, with one possibility being that we could offer discrete Brilliant Club modules as part of existing programmes of support.
Where else have you sought advice and support?
Besides our board and UK partners, we’ve approached organisations working in a similar way. For example, we’ve taken inspiration from Teach for All, which seeks to facilitate action and share learning as a network of like-minded organisations, rather than oversee the delivery of a franchised programme.
The British Council has connected us with potential partners overseas and the Going Global Conference was a fantastic opportunity to make new contacts and enhance existing relationships.
The Asian Venture Philanthropy Network has generously invited us to pitch at their last two annual conferences. These events have deepened our understanding of how social enterprise is developing in Asia and across the world. They have also given us insight into what funders are looking for when backing new projects, and some of the typical challenges that social enterprises face when seeking to build capacity.
What advice would you offer to UK social enterprises that are contemplating overseas expansion?
Think carefully about why you want to work internationally and whether you’re the best people to do it.
Initially, we didn’t have designs for global expansion. The idea grew organically. Basically, Tania Nguyen asked if we’d help her start a DC Chapter of The Brilliant Club and we said yes. After working with her for a year, we decided to explore what a more formal and replicable support structure might look like and came up with the idea of AccessEd.
One key question we discussed was why we should be the ones to take the step and not another organisation. There are lots of great university access programmes and lots of public engagement programmes for PhD researchers, but we concluded that The Brilliant Club is unique in bringing the two together. Over the last five years we have built up significant expertise in recruiting, training and placing PhD researchers in state schools, and we are excited about sharing this expertise with others.
Content on this page is paid for and provided by the British Council, sponsor of the international social enterprise hub.
