Referrals from within universities to the government’s counter-terrorism scheme increased by nearly 50 per cent last year, with cases of extreme right-wing radicalisation up by 18 per cent, new figures show.
English higher education institutions are required to return data to the Office for Students (OfS) about cases of potential individual radicalisation as part of the government’s Prevent strategy.
The latest data from the OfS shows 250 cases were escalated to a Prevent officer in 2024-25, down from 265 the year before but well up on the 140 cases reported five years ago.
The number of formal external Prevent referrals grew by 46 per cent year-on-year, from 65 in 2023-24 to 95 last year.
Institutions are required to specify the underpinning ideology for each case. Of those formal external referrals, 45 were due to “mixed, unclear or unstable ideology”, 20 to “other radicalisation”, 20 to “extreme right-wing radicalisation” and 15 to Islamist radicalisation.
