On Wednesday 12 February 2025, HEPI and Advance HE host their first in-person seminar of the 2025 series at the Houses of Parliament.
Despite large strides in widening participation in recent decades, there are still huge differences in access, progression and outcomes for students, and representation, experience and promotion for staff. This is true for some larger groups, such as white working-class boys or those who are disabled, as well as smaller disadvantaged groups, such as trans staff / students and care leavers.
The new Government at Westminster has made a renewed commitment to widening participation and wants to see a sharper and more focused regulator in the Office for Students. Meanwhile, the target-based regime in Scotland has delivered significant changes, despite the continued use of student number limits. EDI work remains a core commitment and legal imperative for higher education providers, a fact underlined by the persistence of the minority ethnic awarding gap, the recent rise in antisemitism and islamophobia and the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s note of learning from the Abrahart case. Yet some EDI work remains controversial and is regularly contested, including in the mass media. And as this list of priorities grows, progress is hampered by the funding challenges faced by higher education institutions across the UK.
So what can the higher education sector do to make further lasting improvements? Do we need to rethink our wider approach to access and EDI? Is it possible to dial down the culture wars? And which groups that currently face unequal opportunities should be the most urgent priorities?
With guest speakers:
- Professor Tim Soutphommasane, Chief Diversity Officer, University of Oxford
- Sarah Fox, Executive Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, University of Manchester
- Professor Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography, University of Oxford and author of Seven Children: Inequality and Britain’s Next Generation
- Professor Nick Braisby, Vice-Chancellor, Buckinghamshire New University