Our EDI progress, policies and reports

We are proud of our continued commitment to embed Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion across the University of Hertfordshire. We never underestimate the value of listening to the diverse lived experiences of our students and staff and ensure that we create our programmes and initiatives in partnership.

We’re encouraged and driven by achieving clear results against our Institutional Equality Objectives (PDF - 3.13 Mb) year-on-year, and we will continue to pursue excellence in delivering meaningful change.

You can view our historic reports here.

How we're powering progress in equality, diversity and inclusion

Equality, Diversity and inclusion diagram — Listening. We listen to our community. considering their lived experiences to create EDI programmes and initiatives which educate, inform and empower. Informing. The feedback and insight we gather from our community also directly informs policy and action. Reporting. We engage in extensive voluntary reporting to maintain accountability and transparency. Refining. Our reporting is supported by continuous feedback from our community. We maintain an open dialogue to ensure what we're doing is always making a difference.

Highlights of our EDI progress so far

Diversifying our staff community
We know the importance of ensuring that the diversity of our staff truly reflects that of our student community, so we’re proud to see continuing improvement against our Key performance Indicators (KPIs).
Achievements to date:
- in 2021/22, we increased our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff cohort from 21.5%, to 23.2% which is above the sector average of 14.3% (HESA, 2021)
- we have successfully increased senior Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff from 13% to 17% within three years of setting the target.
Our ongoing key strategic equality objectives include:
- securing an institutional silver Athena Swan Award in 2024
- increasing senior academic women by 10% by 2025
- continuing to increase Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic teaching staff from 19% to 25% (target reached in 2021/22).
We have anonymised our shortlisting process to eliminate bias, and to encourage and welcome people from diverse backgrounds and identities to apply and work with us. We aim to ensure diversity exists in our interview panels.
We value our staff and believe that through our commitment to address gender and ethnicity pay gaps, we will create pay equality in the workplace to provide new opportunities and change their lives.
View our latest gender and ethnicity pay gap report
De-colonising the curriculum
Decolonising the curriculum is a key focus across various schools in the University. Our Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic student success working group supports teaching staff to review and improve reading resources and materials, and to develop specific race equality modules within various courses.
Supporting the Herts LGBTQ+ community
We work with our staff to promote LGBTQ+ awareness and allyship via a range of workshops and training. In 2022, we launched a new LGBTQ+ Allies programme, delivering high quality staff training to support and celebrate our LGBTQ+ community. We have ambitions to roll out allyship training across all protected characteristics in future.
We work closely with the Students’ Union LGBTQ+ Association and Society and the UH Staff LGBTQ+ Network to deliver our annual LGBTQ+ History Month programme, providing debates, films and social events to raise awareness, promote discussion and encourage positive relations.
Hertfordshire Law School established its LGBTQ+ law clinic in April 2021, offering pro bono support to the regional LGBTQ+ community, including our staff and students. Law school students have an opportunity to receive training delivered by experienced legal professionals from the LGBTQ+ division of the Law Society, so that they can gain valuable and rewarding work experience supporting clients from the LGBTQ+ community.
We are an active member of the Hertfordshire Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Trans (LGB&T) Partnership of public authorities working together in Hertfordshire to ensure equality of opportunities and treatment of trans people. We have committed to the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index to measure our performance on inclusion against the sector.
See our additional trans-inclusive guidance
Benchmarking progress and data collection
We have a low ‘non declaration’ rate among staff (compared to the sector), but we’re working to expand and improve the demographic data that we collect, particularly around sexual orientation, religious belief, and gender identity. This is important as it helps us to better understand and respond to the needs of specific groups, while helping us benchmark progress against our objective to improve diversity within our staff community.
Our Report and Support programme
Our online Report and Support system enables students and staff to anonymously report or seek advice if they have witnessed discrimination or experienced something with which they feel uncomfortable.
Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Teams (EDIT)
We have formed Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Teams (EDITs) in each Strategic Business Unit (SBU) to advise and facilitate changes in our culture, environment and working practices, and to help us achieve our strategic EDI objectives and priorities.
Disability Confident & University Mental Health Charter
We achieved Level 2 of the Disability Confident Scheme and are committed to the Student Minds University Mental Health Charter.
Find full details in our latest Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion report
Exceeding the standards in reporting
We not only want to go above and beyond in delivering EDI initiatives, but we have also committed to expanding our reporting on a wider scale and ensuring transparency for our community.
We honour our specific responsibility to annually demonstrate compliance with the Public Sector Equality Duty, which also includes publication of one or more specific and measurable objectives towards that Duty.
We abide by the Equality Act 2010, which safeguards people based on their protected characteristics: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation.
We regularly report on the Gender and Ethnicity Pay Gap, and staff and student demographic data, and issue an annual overview of our total activity via our Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Progress Report.
View the current and previous reports
We make all our reports and a wealth of additional EDI support and information available to our staff community on our intranet, Herts Hub.

Contact the EDI Team