Promoting equality and diversity
What we do to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion
Equality Act 2010
The Equality Act 2010 came into force on 1 October 2010 and merged nine existing pieces of legislation. It brought legal protection for people within the nine protected characteristics described in the act. Discrimination towards people in any of these nine protected groups is unlawful:
- Age
- Disability
- Gender reassignment
- Marriage and Civil Partnership
- Pregnancy and maternity (and paternity/family)
- Race
- Religion and belief
- Sex
- Sexual Orientation
How can we promote equality and diversity?
- Treating all staff and students fairly
- Creating an inclusive culture for all staff and students
- Ensuring equal access to opportunities to enable students to fully participate in the learning process
- Enabling all staff and students to develop to their full potential
- Equipping staff and students with the skills to challenge inequality and discrimination in their work/study environment
- Making certain that any learning materials do not discriminate against any individuals or groups
- Ensuring policies, procedures and processes don't discriminate
By following the above, we ensure that staff and students are treated fairly and equally, allowing us to recognise, respect and value our differences. In more practical terms, these are a few of the things we do to work towards this:
- Helping our students with disabilities to arrange learning adjustments that accommodate their needs
- Increasing higher education opportunities for, and supporting, marginalised groups through Widening Participation
- Expanding the Student Support and Wellbeing services within the School
- Encouraging our staff to join workshops and training on a wide variety of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) topics
- Providing multi-faith events and resources through The Chaplaincy
- Committing to family leave related policies that support staff in achieving a healthy work/life balance
- Offering a Staff Pride Network
We are very happy that our student societies take action to promote equality and diversity; for instance, the Economics Society has a dedicated EDI team, and EconWomen focuses on the representation of women in the economics sector. University-wide, the Edinburgh University Student Association (EUSA) has created Liberation Campaigns for disabled, LGBTQ+, trans and non-binary, women, and black and minority ethnic students.
For more information on the University of Edinburgh's policies and strategy, please visit the Equality and Diversity Homepage.
Workload balance
The School of Economics aims to support flexible and family-friendly working and to recognise and value diversity across all our staff and students. We have a work allocation model (WAM) that is committed to the fair, reasonable and equitable allocation of work. It adheres to the guiding principles of the University Policy and is monitored and reviewed regularly by the School WAM Management Group. Additionally, we actively offer support and professional development for all staff by providing mentoring, training, and networking opportunities.
Athena SWAN
The Athena SWAN Charter supports women in science, engineering and technology, and in the arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law and in professional and support roles.
Athena SWAN awards (formerly the Gender Equality Charter Mark, or GEM) recognise and celebrate good practice on recruiting, retaining and promoting women in STEMM in academia, and work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law. Universities must achieve at least a Bronze award before individual departments can apply for recognition at bronze, silver or gold level in their own right.
The logic behind this is that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for a department to sustain the level of e.g. a Silver award without university support and underpinning university good practice policies and processes.
Membership of the Charter also can help universities fulfil their public sector equality, duty, work towards sustaining equitable working environments and identify themselves as employers of choice, not only to their staff, but to students, funders, Research Councils and industry.
The School of Economics is now in receipt of the Athena SWAN Bronze award.