The University of Plymouth strives to be an open and accessible organisation; one that upholds the values of equality and diversity and actively stands against all forms of discrimination.
Whether you are a member of staff, a student, one of our alumni, or a member of the community, the University champions and promotes freedom of speech and expression, and celebrates diverse views and experiences. Indeed, equality and diversity is fundamental to the institution’s Vision to ‘make a positive difference to people’s lives’ and provide ‘an inclusive and inspiring university community'.
How do you measure the true value that diversity brings? At the University of Plymouth, we do this through our equality scheme, which recognises the good work that we’re already doing, while setting new challenges and goals for the future.
The equality scheme helps us to drive positive change through clear equality objectives and targets, which challenge the University to use its resources to deliver sustainable, successful outcomes.
The University’s current equality scheme covers 2017 - 2021 but every year, the institution reviews and documents its progress through its Annual Equality Report. This helps it to update its objectives and targets and respond to new challenges and priorities. For example, the University is seeking to address some specific gender imbalances that recur at a national level, such as encouraging more female staff and students to take up STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) subjects, as well as recruiting more male staff and students to specialisms such as health sciences. It is also examining attitudes of males from lower socioeconomic groups towards higher education, both as a means to understand the University’s own position better, as well as engage with external groups to identify potential actions.
The Equality Act is often described as having three specific ‘aims’.
These are:
Equality of opportunity
Advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and people who do not share it.
Elimination of unlawful discrimination
Eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Act.
Fostering good relations
Promotion of opportunities through support, practices and communications for all protected characteristics.
Ensuring that our policies and practices are fair, reasonable, inclusive and free from discriminatory practices.
Ensure that our culture is welcoming, inclusive and open.
The actions that the University intends to take over the next four years to realise its objectives will evolve over the lifetime of the Equality Scheme. The Annual Equality Report provides an update on the actions taken in the preceding year, their impact, and what our next steps are as we move towards our targets. Some of the actions we plan to take this year include:
Having an equality scheme is one thing, but informing people about the work the University is doing, helps to bring it to life. By law, the University is required to publish an annual update on the work it has undertaken to meet its equality objectives, and as outlined earlier, this takes the form of an Annual Equality Report. The report includes all of the equality monitoring data linked to the scheme. Information about the progress we have made against our previous equality objectives can be found in our Equality Report archive.
Whatever you’re doing at the University, whoever you’re working or studying with and in whatever capacity, our equality and diversity, religious diversity and anti-bullying and anti-harassment policies apply to you.
We also have a specific policy for trans applicants, students, and graduates.
We all have a responsibility to respect and follow our equality policies, and to try and make sure that what we do and how we behave doesn’t amount to discrimination or harassment in any way.
