Widening access to and participation in (WAP) higher education (HE) has been a key theme of higher education policy since the 1970s, gaining strength in the 1990s with an explicit policy focus in some parts of the world. Policy interventions to WAP have involved both fiscal and human investments and have raised complex challenges for issues of accountability. Who determines how funding is allocated? What methods are used for the distribution of resources and who decides? Who is accountable for the methods by which funding is allocated? Who is held accountable for the effectiveness of the use of funding for WAP? These questions are challenging for higher education institutions and governments and have been considered in various different and often contested ways. Increasingly, where there ...