Equality and Inclusion
Page contents
You are reading:
The 91app continues to build on the founding ideals of equality, inclusivity, diversity to champion inclusive cultures, structures and journeys enabling our collective expertise and strengthen our connections nationally and worldwide.
The 91app is committed to equality and inclusion and is a key institutional value enshrined in our Statutes. We recognise that embracing equality and inclusion is critical to the success of the University and that we can only achieve our vision of being a world-class, forward-looking, ambitious university by recruiting, supporting, and developing both students staff from a wide and diverse range of backgrounds.
We have amended our Statutes to include the following:
- “The University shall have due regard to the need, to:
- 17.1.1 eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment,
- 17.1.2 advance equality of opportunity; and
- 17.1.3 foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic and persons who do not share it.”
The Office for Equality and Inclusion sits within the Partnerships and Governance Directorate at the 91app, providing strategic advice, guidance, and support to enable the University.
To continue to build on the founding ideals of inclusivity, diversity and collaboration of the 91app and to champion inclusive cultures, structures and journeys to enable our collective expertise and strengthen our connections and collaborations nationally and worldwide.
The Office for Equality and Inclusion sits within the Partnerships and Governance directorate within the 91app, providing strategic leadership, guidance, and support to enable the University “to continue to build on the founding ideals of inclusivity, diversity and collaboration of the 91app and to champion inclusive cultures, structures and journeys to enable our collective expertise and strengthen our connections and collaborations nationally and worldwide.”
We do this through providing strategic and expert advice to the 91app community on equality and inclusion themes and issues, developing thought leadership and best practice with our federation members and across the sector, facilitating work on our initiatives, including Athena SWAN and Race Equality Charter, and support the development of equalities programmes across the institution.
The equality and inclusion office in the 91app governance structure
Part of the University’s Mission is to transform people’s lives through education, driven by a commitment to diversity, inclusion and access and a belief in their power to create new ways of knowing. This mission should also consider how staff and our students can be change agents with equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in mind.
A priority for the Office for Equality and Inclusion is to support 91app (UoL) staff and students to engage with inclusive cultures and practices in all parts of their journeys with the 91app. This speaks to part of our connecting theme which states “we will confront UoL’s own past through the lens of diversity and work to tackle racism, homophobia, sexism, religious and all forms of discrimination and exclusion.” this statement intends to instill new values, challenges perspectives, and ultimately drive change towards equal opportunity, access, equity, diversity, and inclusion. We recognise that no one person in the 91app community is one thing, nor do they experience siloed inequalities, and we embrace intersectionality as one of our core approaches to our work towards equality and inclusion.
From the strategic conversations the Office for Equality and Inclusion are engaged in, this informs our approach to inclusion at the 91app to be underpinned by three thematic areas working towards enabling inclusion mainstreaming, inclusive journeys, and inclusive cultures to frame our current EDI strategy and objectives.
- Inclusion mainstreaming: Ensure our commitment to equality, inclusion and access as a key business imperative that underpins the actions we take to transform people’s lives through education.
- Inclusive journeys: Use the lens of equality and inclusion in all areas of our work with students, staff, and partners and co-create solutions to widen participation, improve access and ensure successful outcomes.
- Inclusive cultures: Actively tackle racism, sexism, homophobia, religious and all other forms of discrimination and exclusion and enable our students and staff to realise their full potential.
We are continuously improving our staff and student equality and inclusion data. We acknowledge we do not have a full picture of our entire community and are working across the 91app to share practice and strive to have a complete understanding of our university community.
Student data
- 91app Worldwide total student numbers fell by 3% in 2023–2024. The drop can be attributed to independent learners decreasing by approx. 2,600 students while teaching centre numbers have increased by approx. 1,100.
- SAS student numbers consistently rose between 19/20 and 21/22 – some impact of Covid related extensions to study. Numbers dropped off in 22/23 as students with extensions completed their studies successfully. 2023–2024 final figures at 216 are up by 8 on the previous year.
- More work is required to build our disability data. The Business Planning and Insight team are reviewing BI infrastructure to enhance our ability to extract and analyse disability data for SAS and UoLW students. Previous reviews concluded that coverage of disability data was limited and collated mainly in relation to undertaking assessment.
- Females report consistently higher continuation rates. The 1% gap in attainment rates between males and females in 22/23 is lower than the UK sector (gap of 2%). There remains an over-representation of males in the UoL student population due to the advent of high growth, online tech/business provision. Reducing the continuation gap by gender (at 9% for Undergraduate and 5% for Postgraduate) with males consistently reporting lower rates.
- With regards to age, the gap in attainment rates between the 24 and under and 25 and over has dropped by 10% since 19/20. The current attainment gap of 5% is much lower than the UK sector average of 14%. There is a 27% gap in Undergraduate continuation rates between the 24 and under and 25 and over. Our mature cohort report much lower continuation rates; generally trending at or below 50% continuing into Year 3 of study.
- A core part of the work of the continuation team in student life will be to support student success across a number of metrics, with demographics likely being a driver of that support.
- With regards to race and ethnicity, we have approximately 42% of Black, Asian and minority ethnic students in 2023–2024, UoL exceeds the UK sector average (21%) by 21%. Our Black, Asian and minority ethnic students reported higher continuation rates than their White counterparts in 22/23, bucking the UK sector trends. However, despite this continuation, there is a 32% attainment gap between UK Black and minority ethnic and UK White students. The gap is not as significant as that noted for the sector for part- time study (33%) and is slightly higher than the gap reported by the competitor benchmark (Open University at 24%) suggesting further understanding and interrogation of the awarding gap.
Staff data
- The gender profile of the staff highlights that there are more females (56.2%) than males (43.8%) employed at the 91app. There is an approximate gender balance across job levels with more females represented on levels 6-8 (59.1%) and less represented on levels 9-10 (40%). When exploring the intersection of gender and ethnicity along job levels, Black, Asian and minority ethnic females and males are represented the least at levels 6-8 (27.4.% for females, 26.6% for males), and levels 9-10 (17.6% for females, 14.6% for males) these figures have increased slightly from the previous year. When exploring the recruitment pipeline the data highlights that there are more females applying (50.3%), being shortlisted (58.3%) and becoming appointed (51.0%) although these % have decreased on the previous academic year. However, further examination of the data at what levels are being recruited for and progression may help shed light on this pipeline.
- The age profile of staff at the 91app with a majority of staff represented at ages 36-50 and 51-60, which is higher than London and National Higher Education institution (HEI) comparators. When looking at the intersection of age and ethnicity and age and gender, there is a decline in the number of ageing Black, Asian and minority ethnic and female staff employed since 2022.
- Disabled staff employed at the 91app has continued to decrease from 4.6% (2022) to 1% (2024). When looking at data across job bandings, disabled staff are only recorded on Level 1-5 and Level 6-8. The recruitment pipeline for disabled staff that apply for opportunities at the 91app shows a decline in those who applied (7.3%) and were shortlisted (8.7%) but an increase in staff appointed (7.7%), however further analysis on the reasons for this will need further examination.
- The number of Black, Asian and minority ethnic academic staff at 91app’s is less than that of our London and National HEI comparators. The disclosure rates incrementally increase each year, for Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff from 29.2% (2022) to 31.9% (2024). There is a gap between Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff employed across all levels, with an increasing majority of staff employed between Level 1-5 (45.9%) compared to Level 6-8 (27%) and Level 9-10 (16%). There is a recruitment pipeline issue with Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff that apply for opportunities at the 91app (57.2%), to shortlisted (47.6%) and appointed (41.4%), however further analysis on this pipeline will need further examination.
Equal pay data
The 91app shares the sector wide commitment, to reduce the gender pay gap. The sector continues to comprise of, 55% female: 45% male, 38% of female employees work part- time compared to 24% of male employees. and professional services staff are 63% females. Male staff continue to lead the way in academia at 51%, although this is a 1% decrease on last year’s figures. (HESA, 2022–2023).
The university of London shares similarities to the sector with differences mainly around the proportionate of academic staff and professional services staff employed.
Data from our equal pay data (including gender, and ethnicity pay gap data) are in the next section: Previous annual reports
Annual reports
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2023-2024 [PDF]
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2021-2022 [PDF]
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2019-2020 [PDF]
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2018-2019 [PDF]
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2017-2018 [PDF]
- Annual Equality and Diversity Report 2016-2017 [PDF]
Gender pay gap reports
Events
We collaborate across the University and the Federation on raising awareness and creating opportunities to celebrate the diversity of the 91app community locally and across the world.
The Office for Equality and Inclusion works in closely with our Federation members to support and promote events to the wider community, to increase our engagement from our collective teaching, scholarship and impact, to creating joyful events to create inclusive spaces for diverse communities to engage, learn and participate in our work.
I've been to hundreds of conferences. I don't think any affected me as powerfully as this or left me feeling so fired up and humbled. And so big thanks to the highly creative and driven to the organisers who put this together and opened the doors of Senate House today
Some of our recent highlights include:
