Equality, diversity and inclusion

We understand that universities have a historic position of power and privilege. It makes sense that we must play an active role in helping to dismantle structural inequality and address how we can transform the future. It’s critical that we continually ask questions about power, representation and how we include our entire community.

We understand that we have not always got this right in the past. We know that some students have not had the experience that we would have wanted, and that some staff have faced difficult challenges during their tenure. Institutional racism, unconscious bias and discrimination permeate all aspects of global society, and have affected our community too. We are incredibly committed to changing that narrative and ushering in an improved experience for our community.

Like many institutions, 2020 has provided a significant turning point for us; we are opening up and sharing our personal experiences and are having important, challenging conversations. We’d like to make our equality work completely transparent and encourage the accountability that is essential for enacting change.

We are committed to doing the long-term work that is needed for genuine change. We will educate our students and ourselves on how we can be better allies and friends, working together to demand a fairer society for us all.

Our goals, objectives and communications are underpinned by our commitment to demonstrate the following values:

• Creativity
• Integrated with industry
• Inclusion

We aim to support all of our staff and students and acknowledge all protected characteristics as outlined by the Equality Act 2010:

• Age
• Disability
• Gender reassignment
• Marriage and civil partnership
• Pregnancy and maternity
• Race
• Religion or belief
• Sex
• Sexual orientation. 

• To join the Advance HE Race Equality Charter
• Appoint an external race relations provider and schedule diversity training for the entire university
• To be proudly anti-racist and ensure that our recruitment processes reflect this.
• To ensure our workforce reflects our diverse community, at all levels of seniority
• To de-colonise our curriculum and ensure inclusion is at the heart of our teaching
• To improve the student and staff experience, ensuring that complaints are dealt with in an appropriate and timely manner
• To equip our community with the tools to educate and empower each other
• To ensure that students and staff can raise ideas and concerns to improve our community.

In June 2020, we established an Equality, Diversity & Inclusion committee to help create much needed changed across our institution. The committee is responsible for representing all staff and students, ensuring that we have a safe and welcoming university.

The committee is made of staff from across the university, who volunteer their time and expertise to make our community a more inclusive place. The committee is a cross section of the community, representing our academic and professional staff, across a range of seniorities and perspectives. Meetings currently take place on a quarterly basis.  

The committee is chaired by the Vice Chancellor, Andy Cook, with Digital Film Production Senior Lecturer, Orson Nava, as Deputy Chair. The Students’ Union are also an integral part of the committee, ensuring that the student voice is represented at every meeting.

We encourage members of our community to reach out and share their suggestions. If you are interested in joining the committee, please email Carole Axford on c.axford@rave.ac.uk

View our EDI strategy document.

Ravensbourne is committed to equality of employment and the associated principles of equal pay for all of our employees. We use the HAY job evaluation scheme to measure the relative value of all job roles in our pay and grading structures within an overall pay framework, to ensure transparency, consistency, and fairness in the determination of pay.

Ravensbourne is committed to conducting equal pay audits and the elimination of any gender bias in our pay and remuneration systems and we understand and accept our legal responsibilities in that regard.

The following conclusions can be drawn:

The overall gender gap for base salary for all staff at Ravensbourne is 3.10% at the mean (average) and 0.10% of the median. The gender pay gap is principally being driven by an uneven gender distribution across the grades within the organisation. While the overall gender split of employees at Ravensbourne is nearly 50:50, some lower grades contain predominately female staff and the middle management level contains more male than female staff.

In order to address the identified issues summarised above, we will, in particular, as part of our broader equalities and diversity action plan, which is due to be updated:

• Review our internal and external recruitment processes to ascertain whether there are any barriers to females progressing to, or joining, the middle management salary bandings in professional services.
• Review of flexible working provision to understand whether there are any particular aspects that need to updated.