Equality and diversity

Structure and governance

Equality and Diversity

See how our Equality and Diversity team is helping us to create a fairer, more inclusive university for all

We're committed to creating a working, learning, cultural and social environment based on dignity and respect.

Our Equality and Diversity Team support our staff and students to reach their full potential during their time with us. The team helps us meet our obligations under the Equality Act 2010 and follow best practice.

We work with groups including Stonewall Diversity Champions, Working Families, Time to Change, Mindful Employer, AccessAble and Disability Confident, which give us guidance and advice on equality and diversity matters.

We're members of two Higher Education lead charters, Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter, which drive gender and race equality. Find out more about these charters below.

Equality and diversity policies and reports

Take a look at our equality and diversity policies, equality related data and reports, including our Access and Participation Plan 2019/20.

Athena SWAN and the Race Equality Charter

As part of our commitment to equality and diversity, we signed up to two national Higher Education equality charters – Athena SWAN, which focuses on gender equality, and the Race Equality Charter.

Run by Advance Higher Education, the charters enable us to apply for awards recognising our commitment to, and progress on, equality and diversity. They aim to drive forward the cultural and systemic changes we need to implement to ensure we remain an equal and diverse organisation. They also support our University values and strategies.

Athena SWAN

In April 2018 we retained our Athena SWAN Bronze Award, recognising our commitment to gender equality. We're currently delivering our Action Plan 2017 – 2021. In addition, 12 of our Schools and Departments hold the Athena SWAN Bronze awards in their own right.

We're ambitious for the future and are working towards the Athena SWAN silver award in 2021.

If you'd like a copy of our current University submission to Athena SWAN or any of our School/Department submissions, please contact us at charters@port.ac.uk.

Race Equality Charter

We signed up to the Race Equality Charter which aims to improve the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education.

Signing up to the Charter is a significant commitment involving long-term institutional culture change across the University. We aim to build a culture of openness and trust that allows for honest reflection and difficult conversations about race and acknowledges that racial inequalities exist.

Our membership of the Charter demonstrates our commitment to tackling race inequality for staff and students. The Charter gives us a comprehensive framework for race equality work which pulls together work done across the University to tackle race issues our staff and students face.

We plan to submit for a Race Equality Charter award in February 2021.

If you have any questions about our commitment to these charters, please contact charters@port.ac.uk.

Published staff and student equality data reports

The public sector duty of the Equality Act 2010 requires that public sector organisations publish equality information and gender pay gap reports annually.

Below you will find a summary of key student and staff equality related data. This, as well as more detailed data analysis, is used to inform in Equality Impacts and helps support other aspects of the University's equality, diversity and inclusion work and priorities.

Latest Gender Pay Gap Report published here.

Undergraduate student equality data (Home/EU) 2017-18

Gender: 54.7% male, 45.3% female
Ethnicity: 68.3% white, 26.4% BME (of which, 9.8% Asian, 9.4% black, 0.7% Chinese, 4.6% mixed, 1.8% other), 5.3% undisclosed
Disability: 85.9% no disability declared, 14.1% with a disability
Age, on starting course: 90.1% aged under 25, 9.9% aged 25 or older
Age, on starting course: 79.8% aged under 25, 66.9% aged 25 or older

Gender: 10.1% male, 6.8% female
Ethnicity: 8.2% white, 9.9% BME (9.0% Asian, 12.1% black, 4.9% Chinese, 7.7% mixed, 10.2% other)
Disability: 8.1% no disability declared, 11.7% with a disability
Age, on starting course: 8.2% aged under 25, 12.2% aged 25 or older

Gender: 76.5% male, 81.3% female. Attainment gap = 4.8%
Ethnicity: 83.4% white, 64.6% BME (Asian 70.8%, 56.4% black, 77.8% Chinese, 73.2% mixed, 53.6% other). Ethnicity attainment gap = 18.8%
Intersectionality: 84.7% white female, 82.3% white male, 70.0% BME female, 60.1% BME male
Disability: 79.5% no disability declared, 74.1% with a disability. Attainment gap = 5.4%
Age, on starting course: 78.6% aged under 25, 80.8% aged 25 or older. Attainment gap = 2.2%

Staff equality data 2017-18

Gender: 55.7% male, 44.3% female
Ethnicity: 77.2% white, 11.8% BME (of which, 4.0% Asian, 1.3% black, 3.2% Chinese, 1.9% mixed, 1.5% other), 10.9% undisclosed
Disability: 81.0% no disability declared, 5.8% with a disability, 13.2% undisclosed
Age: 18.4% aged under 36, 54.0% aged 36-55, 27.6% aged 56 or older

Gender: 56.4% male, 42.0% female, 1.6% undisclosed
Ethnicity: 58.7% white, 36.0% BME (of which, 14.4% Asian, 6.1% black, 4.8% Chinese, 3.4% mixed, 7.3% other), 5.3% undisclosed
Disability: 94.7% no disability declared, 5.3% with a disability
Age: 47.1% aged under 36, 46.2% aged 36-55, 6.7% aged 56 or older

Gender: 46.6% male, 52.8% female, 0.5% undisclosed
Ethnicity: 75.6% white, 20.5% BME (of which, 4.1% Asian, 4.7% black, 2.8% Chinese, 4.4% mixed, 4.4% other), 3.9% undisclosed
Disability: 93.6% no disability declared, 6.4% with a disability
Age: 40.4% aged under 36, 50.3% aged 36-55, 9.3% aged 56 or older

Gender: 32.9% male, 67.1% female
Ethnicity: 90.5% white, 4.6% BME (of which, 1.1% Asian, 0.7% black, 0.9% Chinese, 1.6% mixed, 0.4% other), 4.8% undisclosed
Disability: 83.6% no disability declared, 8.9% with a disability, 7.6% undisclosed
Age: 31.1% aged under 36, 52.2% aged 36-55, 16.7% aged 56 or older

Gender: 34.4% male, 63.3% female, 2.3% undisclosed
Ethnicity: 82.1% white, 15.0% BME (of which, 6.0% Asian, 2.8% black, 1.7% Chinese, 2.5% mixed, 2.1% other), 2.9% undisclosed
Disability: 92.0% no disability declared, 8.0% with a disability
Age: 61.1% aged under 36, 33.3% aged 36-55, 5.4% aged 56 or older

Gender: 34.2% male, 64.4% female, 1.4% undisclosed
Ethnicity: 88.8% white, 8.1% BME (of which, 1.7% Asian, 2.4% black, 1.0% Chinese, 2.4% mixed, 0.7% other), 3.1% undisclosed
Disability: 92.4% no disability declared, 7.6% with a disability
Age: 61.1% aged under 36, 33.1% aged 36-55, 5.6% aged 56 or older

More detailed data, including international student information, is available in the ‘Equality & Diversity Staff/Student Data Reports 2017-18’. These reports are available on request.

Discover more about our work

To keep up to date on all things Equality and Diversity we have various ways to keep in touch.

To see the latest news and updates head to our weekly Equality newsletter.

You can follow us on Twitter.

If you have any questions relating to Equality and Diversity, please email equality@port.ac.uk.