Race Equality Charter

What is the Race Equality Charter?

The Race Equality Charter (REC) aims to improve the representation, progression and success of Black and Minority Ethnic staff and students within Higher Education and focuses on; academic employees, professional and support employees, student progression and awarding, and diversity of the curriculum.

Launched by the Equality Challenge Unit (now Advance HE) in January 2016, the REC provides a framework through which institutions work to identify and self-reflect on institutional and cultural barriers standing in the way of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic staff and students, and is underpinned by five guiding principles.

The University is committed to the REC and joined as a member institution in May 2017. Member institutions develop initiatives and solutions for action as part of the application process.

Following a thorough self-assessment process, we submitted to the Race Equality Charter at Bronze level in July 2023 and were pleased to receive the award demonstrating our institutional commitment to race equity.  Our Bronze award will be in place until November 2028, during which time we will tackle our ambitious action plan bringing race equity and inclusion to every corner of our institution.

We have key priorities which include:

• increasing the ethnic diversity of our professional and support staff,
• increasing our proportion of B.A.M.E UK academics
• increasing our proportion of B.A.M.E staff in senior roles
• closing the ethnicity degree awarding gap within the next five years
• improving the lived experiences of our staff and students from minoritised backgrounds

For more information on our planned work, please see our REC action plan (.pdf)

Self-Assessment Team (SAT)

Our SAT co-Chairs are Professor Lorna Fox O’Mahony and Elaine Brown, our Director of Inclusion.  Working with the Inclusion Team and other members of the SAT, the co-Chairs are responsible for driving the University’s work to improve racial equality across the University and within the community more broadly.  The SAT meets twice termly.  Please look out for regular updates on our progress.

If you want to know more about or be involved in race equity work, please email the Inclusion team on inclusion@essex.ac.uk or contact our Director of Inclusion, Elaine Brown at elaine.brown@essex.ac.uk

Members

Tackling racism

The University recognises the importance of adopting a holistic, institutional approach to tackling racismtackling racismtackling racism to ensure sustainable and systemic change. We are aligning our Anti-Racism Action plan with the Race Equality Charter and the Universities UK recommendations to ensure that we take a cohesive approach to tackling racial harassment and addressing institutional racism. 

More about our work on race equality and inclusion

• Blogs from our REC SAT members Ai Gooch, Cara Booker and Winifred Eboh
• Our Director of Inclusion, Elaine Brown and her Black History Month interview
• Our work on the Black History Month website and get involved in our BHM events
• Our pioneering Black Researchers’ Hub learning platform  
• Our inclusion champions
• Our Anti-Racism PlanOur Anti-Racism PlanOur Anti-Racism Plan
• Zero Tolerance approachZero Tolerance approachZero Tolerance approach
• Equality, Diversity and InclusionEquality, Diversity and InclusionEquality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Report sexual violence, harassment and hate crimeReport sexual violence, harassment and hate crimeReport sexual violence, harassment and hate crime
• Join our B.A.M.E. staff forum
• Learn more about the range of events, groups and commitments we make to our B.A.M.E community.