Our plans for EDI 2021-2025
Our strategic equality objectives
Diversity in teaching
Increase Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic teaching staff from 19% to 25% and senior Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff from 13% to 16% by 2025
Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic achievements
Halve the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic awarding gap by 2025, from 18% to 9%
Advancing gender equality
Increase academic women by 10% by 2025* and secure institutional Silver Athena Swan Award in 2024
The University of Hertfordshire advances equality by ensuring all our policies, services and practices reflect our commitment. We abide by the UK Public Sector Equality Duty, work closely with our staff and student community, staff networks, Student’ Union, local and national partners, and ensure equality is mainstreamed into our own business planning process. This allows our Strategic Business Units (SBUs) to pursue relevant goals, which are aligned with our strategic objectives.
In our 2020 - 2025 strategic plan, we outlined our commitment to reducing the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic awarding gap by 50%, launching our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Institutional Action Plan in September 2020. Our 2021/22 progress review has shown the plan is making a tangible impact - reducing the gap from 20 percentage points in 2018/19 to 16 percentage points in 2021/22.
We have made steady progress towards meeting our EDI targets but we don’t want to stop there. To improve diversity at a senior level, we have committed to a new aspirational target - to Increase senior staff (salary level 9 and above) with a declared disability to 8% (from 6.7%) by 2025.
We know that by creating a more diverse staff community, we will be better equipped to meet the needs of our students. We want to share and report on our successes by participating in open discussion across the sector – supporting, as well as learning from, other institutions in creating a culture where every student and member of staff is welcomed, supported, nurtured, and celebrated.
Read our EDI Annual Report to learn what we’ve delivered so far.
*(Increase academic women from 44.7% to 49.2%)