City St George’s, University of London and Boost Education Service Limited KTP 24_25 R4

A university is building a digital platform that automates how it recruits students from the UK and abroad, aiming to predict who will succeed and stay enrolled. The problem is that universities currently rely on manual, slow, and often inconsistent admissions processes. This leads to missed recruitment opportunities, high dropout rates among students who were poorly matched to courses, and lost tuition income. The project addresses a gap in how institutions use data to make admissions decisions at scale. If the platform works, it could transform a university’s core business: matching students to courses where they are likely to thrive. For the university, this means higher retention rates and more predictable fee income. For students, it could mean a smoother application experience and a better fit with their chosen programme. The platform would quietly improve a system most people never see—the back-end infrastructure of higher education admissions—by replacing guesswork with data-driven optimisation. This is an applied commercial project, not fundamental science. Its success will be measured in recruitment efficiency and student outcomes, not in new knowledge about how learning works.