Talk to people involved in ICET and they will tell you that the charity was set up in 2020.   However it was actually founded in 1984 for a completely different purpose than it has now.

The area around Regent’s Park has always been home to a number of higher education organisations.  Bedford College, the first Higher Education institution for women moved there in 1911.  When then merged with Royal Holloway College and moved out of central London the lease on the building was was taken by Rockford College, Illinois, which founded Regent's College to offer a 'study abroad' programme.  They did not run the campus to make a profit, instead setting it up as a charity.  (Interestingly their sports teams today are still called Rockford Regents!) 

Regent’s University London was one of only two charitable universities in the UK. It received no government funding and instead its sole income was student fees. The students were drawn from across the world – around 80% of them coming from outside the UK. The University was well managed, it lived off the fee income, and it did not have loans. This financial strength proved its undoing. When the COVID epidemic hit international students could not travel to London, and so they did not pay their fees.

It was clear that Regent’s needed a financial rescue package and this was provided by Galileo Global Education who bought the university from the charity.  At which point the charity had funds remaining. It was repurposed to become a grant making charity supporting disadvantaged students into higher education. The name was changed to the Inner Circle Educational Trust – Inner Circle being the road in Regent’s Park that the University was on.  The charity kept its same registration number with the Charity Commission (291583) and some of those who were trustees when they ran a university stayed on as trustees of the new charity. Since then additional trustees have been added. 

Today ICET is a grant making charity focused on encouraging looked after children in the social care system, to go into higher education.  We don’t make grants to students but rather we are funding programmes.  You can read about those here.