Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
The Faculty of Education is committed to embedding equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across all aspects of Faculty life. Our approach is designed to ensure that EDI is both strategic and operational, shaping decision-making, curriculum development, student experience, research, knowledge exchange and staff development.
In line with the University EDI strategy (2026-2031), our Faculty EDI structure is built around three principles: aspiration, action and accountability. Through Executive Sponsors, EDI Panels and the Intersectional Steering Group, we aim to create meaningful opportunities for participation, influence and change while ensuring that lived experience and research expertise remain central to our work.
Our faculty EDI panels
- Our three‑tier alignment is built around aspiration, action and accountability, in order to ensure that our EDI work is both strategic and operational, rather than symbolic.
- Executive Sponsors demonstrate the Faculty’s commitment to EDI at the highest levels of its leadership. The aim is to amplify insights to ensure that panels influence decision‑making processes. EDI is therefore integral to all Faculty business.
- Reverse Mentoring for leadership places high importance and value on lived experience, especially when Executive Sponsors do not share characteristics of experience from marginalised groups.
- Panel Chairs connect people, mobilise expertise, and ensure EDI thinking shapes curriculum, portfolio review, student experience, research and knowledge exchange activity, and recognition frameworks.
- Formal and generative spaces are created through three formal meetings per year, alongside optional working groups focused on research and knowledge exchange, and other initiatives, preventing EDI from becoming a tokenistic.
- Intersectional Steering Group creates a formal structure for a cross‑cutting body that ensures no characteristic is siloed or treated as a token category. Ultimately, its aim is to explore how multiple forms of marginalisation can exist and how barriers can be reduced in relation to intersectional characteristics.
Find out more about our EDI Principles
- To avoid tokenism and ventriloquism.
- To prioritise authentic lived experiences and research expertise.
- To seek a redistribution of power and voice through the reverse mentoring and executive sponsorship of panels.
- To ensure meaningful action across all areas of Faculty business where appropriate.
- To ensure diversity activities are meaningful and relevant to groups, rather than performative.
- To evaluate and review all activities annually, identifying opportunities for further growth and scale-up, new pilot work, and or closure of defined activities.
- To ensure all activities are recognised within members’ workload allocations, and reflected in PDR objectives as appropriate.
Our Executive sponsors
Our Executive Sponsors will:
- Strategic alignment: Assess how EDI panel goals connect with Faculty and University priorities across all groups (staff, students, partners).
- Barrier identification and removal: Help address structural or cultural challenges identified by panels through the Faculty Executive Team, and across the University.
- Advocacy and amplification: Champion EDI initiatives at leadership level. Where appropriate, elevate panel insights and successes across the Faculty and University, ensure panel members’ work is visibly included in workload allocations, and PDR objectives.
- Reverse Mentoring: Be present and willing to learn from the group through listening, and facilitating action as and where appropriate. At panels, executive sponsors should consider what insights from this group/characteristic should leaders across the Faculty be aware of, and where appropriate, respond to through agreed action.
- Support: Provide guidance, resources, and accountability for sustained progress.
Find out more about the role of our Panel Chairs
People: Panel chairs are responsible for connecting people – panel members, staff networks, wider University groups, and the Students’ Union.
Expertise and Influence: They should use the expertise of the panel to inform curriculum design and delivery, portfolio review, student experience reviews, planning and monitoring.
Promotion and Representation: This may extend to calendar initiatives (e.g. carers week, BHM, Pride/LGBTQ+ history month, etc).
Recognition: to lead and support self-assessment and recognition initiatives, including Athena Swan.
Externality/Development: Panels are able to mobilise their experience to develop research and knowledge exchange offers both internally and externally. This may include to students, colleagues in FOE, or the wider University and its communities.
Organisation and Reporting: Panels run three times a year formally, reporting to the EDI steering group which focuses on intersectionality. Groups are encouraged to be able to meet up in addition to this to develop projects related to learning and teaching, research and knowledge exchange, and other generative initiatives.