EQUALITY AND INCLUSION
Our Equality and Inclusion vision
As an international, research-intensive university with a strong commitment to student education we will create an inclusive environment that attracts, develops and retains the best students and staff from all backgrounds from across the world and supports them in delivering their ambitions, contributing to our institutional strategic aims.
Context for the framework
The foundation of our global community at the University of Leeds is equality of opportunity, respect, fairness and inclusion. These are vital enablers of the aspirations set out in our University Strategy 2020-30: ‘Making a Global Impact’. One of our five University values is inclusiveness. We believe that every student, all our staff and other members of our community should be treated with dignity and mutual respect. We should all be part of a learning and working environment that is free from barriers, regardless of age, caring responsibilities (University of Leeds specific characteristic), disabilities, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership, pregnancy or maternity status, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation (Protected characteristics of the Equality Act 2010). As well as speaking to our core values, we know that enhancing equality and inclusion is advantageous on an individual and organisational level. It supports the wellbeing of our students and staff and improves the sense of belonging for everyone learning, studying or working at our University. This in turn encourages commitment, performance, creativity and innovation strengthened by a wider range of perspectives and experiences contributing to key decision making. By fully embracing and valuing equality and inclusion, our University will ensure its long-term relevance in a fast-changing world and our already considerable global reputation and impact will be further enhanced. Our actions and commitments will need to be developed against the recognition that bias and discrimination have existed and still exist both in society and throughout higher education. Our University acknowledges our own responsibilities in this regard. We will address these issues locally and also seek to provide leadership and best practice more widely across the sector. We recognise that to achieve this there is a continuing need to build trust and engagement between our University and all our student and staff groups. We acknowledge that there are disadvantages and inequalities in accessing education, opportunities, experiences and outcomes for both students and staff. We know that we have further work to do to ensure we achieve a genuinely equal and inclusive environment and this framework commits us to this. We also know that delivering a genuine environment of this nature is the responsibility of everyone at our University.
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