2020 feels like a long time ago now, but the global incidents and activism of that year made their mark, causing many universities to scramble to tackle racism head-on after years of inaction.
Following the events of 2020, responses to dealing with racism were varied and often fell flat, as Halpin’s sector report on the response to Black Lives Matter found in November of the same year.
In attempts to combat racism, one long-term intervention many institutions have opted for is to join Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter (REC). This is a national framework, akin to the membership charity’s Athena Swan framework. The REC is aimed at empowering universities to self-reflect on their people, policies and practices, and produce an action plan that removes barriers for staff and students from racially minoritised groups.
Is it relevant?
Despite challenges from the UK media, we believe that the REC is a valuable exercise for higher education institutions, with many having reiterated their position on this in 2022.
Concerns have been raised in the past about the volume of work involved in the REC, which some institutions had cited as reasoning for not engaging with the framework. In July 2023, a revised scheme was launched, following wide consultation with member institutions and research conducted by Dr Nicola Rollock and Freya Douglas Oloyede. The new scheme, available for use from the 2023/24 academic year, provides a clearer submission structure, with greater flexibility over what is reported and a reduction of the data burden. These are positive steps to help turn the REC into a more accessible and beneficial activity for institutions to take part in.
Whether to join the REC or not is up to the individual institution to decide, ideally, involving members of the community in the decision too. Your institution may instead decide to assess itself by internally decided metrics, markers and agreed positions, and this may be the best thing for you and your context. But, taking part in the REC brings a nationally agreed framework for analysis, resources and support, and submissions are peer reviewed – so successful submissions are robust.
What to know
If you’re considering signing up to the REC, or have recently signed up, here are some things to consider at the early stages to help you as you progress.
Avoid siloing
By its nature, the REC needs you to involve staff and students across the entire organisation, so resist the urge to tie ownership of this back to one area of your organisation. Often this comes to HR or People functions, but the focus of the REC is equally on staff and students.
Ensure that project management is held centrally, and actively involves a wide range of stakeholders. Your Self-Assessment Team (SAT) will be central to this, and you should consider how to adequately recognise and support those taking an active role in producing your institutional submission on top of their primary role as staff, student or alumni.
Data
There are a lot of data points to touch on, covering the entire staff and student life cycles and everything in between. If your institution has already submitted Athena Swan submissions, you may be expecting a similar ride, but beware; each framework is governed separately and have developed differently. A key feature of the new REC process is that there are fewer mandatory datasets required, but you can choose to include additional data which may complement the areas you explore as priorities, so this should be factored in. Also consider that each data point (for example, undergraduate admissions) should be disaggregated as far as appropriate, which could mean as many as 19 ethnicity categories to consider.
Consultation
No one individual at your institution can personally summarise the state of racism at the university, so wide consultation is a core element of the REC. Adopt a co-creation approach from the start to set you on the right track; a representative SAT with Co-Chairs is a good start, as are sub-groups for thematic analysis, collective analysis of data and how it’s collected. Consider your consultation outside of the SAT too; will you involve faculty staff in findings about their students and staff? Will the students’ union have direct opportunities for input? Cast the net wide for as inclusive an approach as possible.
Communications
Given the breadth of the REC and the output – an ambitious but achievable, impactful action plan for the entire institution – how you talk about the project is essential. Engage your internal and external communications teams as a core element of the project, and consider how you’ll encourage and bring people along, and how you’ll maintain engagement and interest too. A big part of this will include sharing findings, both positive and negative, from consultations as they happen, so people understand that their views have been heard and included.
Time and Planning
These two aspects go hand in hand, and should not be underestimated. The REC is an intensive process that will take time, so ensure you have mapped out a clear timeline with contingencies, and return to this often to check on progress and amend as needed. Take the time before you really kick off to understand where you’re starting from (considering everything from data availability to dream internal stakeholders to engage) and what you will need to do to finalise your submission. If your institution has a project management or special projects team, consider them being involved to ensure your submission is well-supported.
Halpin has a wealth of experience in working with universities to improve equality, diversity and inclusion, including working with the REC. Working with an external partner is often what is needed to test and challenge existing ways of working and produce different results. Contact us to find out more about how Halpin and our team of HE experts can support you.