Equality and diversity

We recognise that diversity is key to our success and are committed to driving change at all levels.

What we do

Athena Swan

Our School is proud to announce our success in renewing our Athena Swan Bronze award. This demonstrates our continued commitment to progress and embed Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in all that we do.

Our School and Head of School has made it a priority to consolidate and extend a culture of gender equality across all areas of our activity. Our Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Social Responsibility (SR) agendas are now embedded in our governance structures. Significant resources have been invested to support our work in these areas. We have a dedicated office (Engagement and External Relations) to monitor the progress on our Action Plan, and our EDI Director and SR Director are an ex-officio member of the School’s Senior Leadership Team (SLT).

Despite advances, we recognise the need to improve further the gender and ethnic makeup of our staff and student pipelines. We will enhance the level of support we offer to female and BAME colleagues and students to reach their full potential, enable a greater proportion of female and BAME colleagues to reach the top ranks and pay grades, and a greater proportion of female and BAME students to achieve higher grades and improve their employment opportunities. We will also tackle intersectional sources of inequality based on gender, race, disability and/or sexuality.

Brian Heaphy, Head of School “I am delighted that the School of Social Science has been awarded an extension of the Bronze Athena Swan, building on the work of colleagues in the previous Schools of Law and Social Science. The current EDI team, led by Dimitris Papadimitriou, have done an excellent job in following up the commitments made by the previous schools, merging their plans, evaluating their achievements and working on a course of action that will form the basis of an application for a Silver award. The extension is recognition of the fact School takes EDI very seriously, and we need to continue to make progress in this area.”

Alison Wilson, Head of School Operations, “Delighted to hear of the successful extension of the Bronze Athena Swan Award, now onto preparation for Silver!”

Sarah Tiffany-Dodman, Engagement & External Relations Manager; Athena Swan Submission Team, “It’s such great news that the Higher Education Authority recognises our School’s commitment to ensuring our staff and students can work, learn and thrive in a diverse and inclusive environment”.

Fae Garland, Athena Swan Submission team, "I am so pleased to have received this news about our Athena Swan Bronze award. While there is more work to do, the AS application process really highlighted how much significant work has been undertaken by colleagues over the past five years. As a result, we were able to develop an action plan designed to build on this momentum and move forward the School's commitment to Equality and Diversity".

Find out more details:

• Our commitment to the UK Athena Swan Principles
• Our monitoring system
• Action Plan 2022-2027 
• The University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Office 

Diversity in our School

We are a diverse and welcoming place for all students and staff.

Find out more about the latest information on our student and staff makeup (2021-22) PDF document.

• View the figures and statistics from 2020-21
• View the figures and statistics from 2019-20

Resources for staff and students

• Dignity at work and study (staff)
• Dignity at work and study (students)
• Disability Staff Network
• Diversity calendar
• Report and support
• Supporting Trans Staff
• Wellbeing Choir - Sign up

Details of a wide range of other staff networks can be found on StaffNet.