Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The School of Geographical and Earth Sciences has an active Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee, which has worked closely with staff and students across GES to co-develop and co-deliver a suite of activities designed to improve work and study place culture. We have a local programme of activity linked to the Advance HE Equality Charters.
In 2023, we launched a new model of delivery where EDI principles are mainstreamed and embedded in every activity we do in the school. We call this the EDI Together approach – a collaborative framework that allows the GES community of scholars, students, technicians and professional staff to work together to create an inclusive, positive and nurturing work and study culture.
Together, we are committed to tackling gender, race, LGBTQ+, disability and age inequality through an open, sensitive and transformative approach that we embed across the School. GES hosts regular social, training and career development events, and works closely with the College of Science and Engineering’s (CoSE) EDI officer and committee to co-organise events across the college around EDI themes (e.g. disability, race or intersectionality).
The EDI committee serves as a hub for this work, providing a space for staff in the GES community to share progress on their EDI actions, exchange ideas and access support on EDI matters. It brings together academic and professional staff from a broad range of job families and career stages, and regularly involves students from across our taught and PhD programmes.
Athena Swan
GES has held an Athena SWAN Silver Award since 2017. Notable achievements over this period were successes in retention and promotion of female staff in all academic job families, the regrading of professional and technical services staff and successfully meeting or exceeding our benchmarks for the number of female:male students in the school. Moreover, new initiatives were put in place to improve work-life balance including inclusive meeting times and welcoming families to school social events.
In 2024, we renewed our Athena Swan Silver Renewal Action Plan (SRAP) recognising our continued commitment to addressing gender and intersectional inequality in Higher Education. Our new actions are designed to take an intersectional approach to addressing inequality and cover issues including:
- Effective data capture to track our progress on EDI matters
- Workplace culture, including promoting positive and addressing negative workplace culture
- Tackling intersectional inequalities
- Supporting career and personal transitions
