Keele’s equality and diversity programme has been shortlisted in the Universities Human Resources (UHR) Awards 2019.

Keele’s programme of work to advancing race equality raised institutional awareness of the issues underlying race inequality in higher education, and in society more broadly, with a view to ensuring widespread engagement and positive change. The programme worked closely with Keele’s BAME network, and successfully delivered interventions which have had an impact on individuals, groups and the institution as a whole.

The programme offered more opportunities for BAME staff and students to give their views in a safe place, provided an innovative race equality lecture series, and secured commitments in support of race equality from senior management.

Rachel Adams, Director of Human Resources at Keele University, said: “I am delighted that the work of colleagues at Keele in advancing race equality has been recognised by UHR. Our objective is to a make positive difference in our own institution and beyond, therefore this is a good opportunity to share our good practice and experience with other higher education institutions and to learn from them since there are a number of strong and innovative submissions within the category of equality and diversity.”

Helen Scott, UHR Executive Director, said: “One of UHR’s key roles is to help the sector identify and learn from good practice, and the annual UHR Awards play a part in that. Keele has been shortlisted for a UHR Award for their Advancing Race Equality work and we felt they’d tackled issues around BAME equality head-on, involving leadership from the start, and drawing in departments around the university to good effect.

“It’s very important to UHR that others in the sector can learn from our award winners in order to simplify and make faster their own projects, and much about Keele’s project is directly transferable to other universities.”

The winners will be announced in May.