UAL has been awarded the Race Equality Charter (REC) Bronze Award
Race Equality Charter
The Charter is a national scheme by AdvanceHE. It supports institutions in their work to identify and address the barriers facing Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students, while also providing a framework for action and improvement.
In our application, UAL set out how we will continue to work to improve representation, progression and success of our staff and students. The application processes involved a thorough self-assessment against a range of criteria, data evaluation and the production of a detailed action plan, demonstrating how we intend to address the gaps and challenges we face.
The Panel specifically commended actions within the application focused on promoting transparency, accountability and buy-in from across the University.
UAL’s application was led by a Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team, made up of colleagues with different backgrounds, identities, and experiences representing staff and students from our Colleges and central departments.
Professor Karen Stanton, Interim Vice-Chancellor of UAL, said:
“Achieving the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award is an important milestone for UAL in our progress towards being a truly anti-racist university.
“This award is the next step on that journey. It gives us a clear roadmap for how we will take forward the work begun in our 3-year anti-racism action plan, and continue our efforts to change our culture and remove the barriers our Black, Asian and minority ethic staff and students face.
“I would like to thank everyone involved in this work for their support in making our submission possible – members of the REC Self-Assessment team who have shaped our action plan and application, and all our staff and students across UAL in their ongoing efforts to address inequality.”
The REC submission is part of a 4-year anti-racism journey for UAL, which includes our Anti-Racism Action Plan where the University pledged to review our actions and become truly anti-racist, and to work with students, staff, graduates, Trade Unions and other partners to dismantle systemic racism within UAL.
Our staff and student voices were an important catalyst for this work: GEMS, our network for B.A.M.E. staff, led a session challenging our Executive Board to reflect on their own experience and past actions. Governors also heard student concerns via the Student Experience Advisory Group and a report by the Student Governor representative to the Court of Governors. A student-led petition also made a series of demands of UAL in relation to race.
In 2020, UAL published a consultation paper setting out proposals for the development of an Anti-Racism Strategy. Following an extensive university-wide consultation with staff, students, Arts SU and all EDI Networks, UAL finalised, launched and began implementing this strategy in 2021, which formed the basis for the progression of our REC work.
The REC SAT was co-chaired by UAL’s former Race Champion, Naina Patel, and Carol Tulloch, Professor of Dress, Diaspora and Transnationalism at UAL.
Carol said: “I want to congratulate the Executive Board, the EDI team and all the SAT members for the tireless work undertaken over some four years resulted in a Bronze Race Equality Charter Award. This significant recognition marks a milestone in UAL’s past work and future goals towards Race Equality, diversity and inclusion.
“It was an honour to work alongside UAL staff and students, across all strata of the University, who engaged in debate at meetings and workshops, and deciphered UAL data that became the foundation of the REC application from which action plans have been devised for the next years. A wonderful achievement.”
Undertaking the REC self-assessment process, UAL identified the need to strengthen our EDI governance and will be creating a University EDI Committee with the responsibility of overseeing all EDI activities across the University including the implementation of the REC action plan and receiving regular updates from the SAT.
Chief Social Purpose Officer Polly Mackenzie said:
“We are happy to have been awarded the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award, which has only been possible thanks to the hard work and dedication of colleagues getting this over the line.
“I’m excited for the next stage in our work in taking forward these actions, monitoring the progress, and future embedding race equality in our systems, governance and purpose as an institution.
“We are speaking with key staff groups on how we strengthen our governance structures and hope will share more details on membership of a University EDI Committee in the new year.”
Our 30% staff representation target update
In April 2021, we set the target for the University to have at least 30% B.A.M.E staff representation by July 2024. Completion rate for staff’s race and ethnicity has increased from 76.7% (Spring 2022) to 95.7% (July 2024).
In April 2021, our data reported 23.13% B.A.M.E staff which increased to 29.3% in July 2024, a total increase of 6.5%. While we fell short of that initial goal, we are proud of our staff and students for the changes and improvements that have been made over the last 4 years.
Within the Race Equality Charter action plan we have set out how we will take forward this work, which will be published in the new year. The REC Action Plan will now replace UAL’s Anti-Racism Action Plan.