NU EDI Conference 2024

Northumbria hosted our inaugural Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) conference on Wednesday 5 June 2024 with the aim to showcase the intersectional and interdisciplinary approaches that the Northumbria community takes to ensuring the University is an inclusive place to work and study. The day was opened by Vice Chancellor and Chief Executive Andy Long and featured a variety of key-note speakers, workshops, presentations, seminars, and networking opportunities. Attendees of the conference were represented by colleagues in all faculties, various areas of professional support, students and invited guests.

We would like to thank all those who contributed to the day and supported us to facilitate such a wonderful event.

The intention of the conference was to facilitate a day that had been crafted by the voices of our community and as such, a call out for contributions was sent out in early 2024. Being open to sessions, the call out asked for prospective contributors to identify where they might showcase research or an interdisciplinary approach to EDI, highlight lived experience, or facilitate a workshop. The EDI team were delighted to receive expressions of interest from over thirty individuals and groups, and all were offered a space to exhibit their work, whether this was through a presentation, workshop or to be part of the project library and initiative showcase.

The full agenda was published in advance of the day to enable colleagues and students to sign up to any keynotes, identify any parallel sessions they wished to attend, and to note any dietary and catering requirements. 

The EDI team appreciate all the feedback received and, in align with other events, will use the valuable insight to improve the EDI offering at Northumbria. Some examples of the feedback received included:

“I particularly liked the fact that EDI was thought of as 'belonging' to everyone in the organisation; it was good to see that this isn't something that sits solely in HR but that we should all have ownership over, and that is just as important for our students, research participants or subcontractors. The conference reminded us that we are not 'doing' EDI to gain awards or tick boxes; we are doing it because it is a core part of our institutional values. It gave us the space to think about EDI and freedom of speech across organisational silos, and how we can enact it in our day to day activities.”

“The speakers were all brilliant. The session kept to time really well, the presentations were all very clear and easy to understand, and everyone was audible because they correctly used the microphones.”

“It was great to meet people from other networks and make connections which we are able to then use to develop more services and support systems for students with more cohesion across the university.” 

To enable sharing of knowledge and learning to those unable to attend, the following recordings, slides and posters are provided below: (Northumbria log in required)

Recordings:

• Introduction with Vice Chancellor Andy Long. 
• 'Embedding EDI into all that We Do' with Rachel Brown, Monique Lhussier, Adrian Curtis, Niall Sweby and Graham Wynn.
• 'How Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom influence approaches to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion' with Tom Lawson and Melanie Steed - Part 1, Part 2. 
• 'Progress within our areas of Inclusion' with Senior Sponsors for Equality.

Slides:

• 'Inclusion across the University' with Faculty Directors of EDI & Faculty Directors of AP.
• 'Navigating Neurodivergence at Northumbria' with Chris Bogle, Catherine Neville and Student Inclusion Consultants.
• 'Amplifying Inclusion through Research, Networks and Projects' with The Sisters in Higher Education Network (S.HI.NE), Cara Hatcher, Carolyn Gibbeson, 'Amplifying Black and Asian Voices Project', Paul Ansdell,
• 'Religion and Intersections: Scoping the issues in a University context and beyond' with Andii Bowsher.
• 'Active Bystander Workshop' with Sarahlouise McGarrell.
• 'Inclusive Design in Teaching' with Gayle Cantrell.
• 'DFN Supported Internship' with Northumbria partners at DFN Project Search, Newcastle City Council, City Learning and Sodexo.

Posters from the Project Library and Initiative Showcase:

• Advancing LGBTQ+ Equality Project
• DFN Supported Internships
• Evaluating the impact of a ‘competitive salary’ in placement job advertisements on different student groups

• Evaluating the gender inclusivity of academic job advertisements in male dominated disciplines

• Gender Equality at Northumbria
• Growing a more vibrant, fair and inclusive research culture
• How to increase hate crime reporting on campus
• Increasing accessibility to fashion education through collaboration with schools and community groups
• Promoting the Retention of Female Students in BioInformatics
• Race Equality at Northumbria 
• Supporting Gypsies, Travellers, Roma, Showmen and Boater students at Northumbria University
• The demographic consequences of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine for Russia
• “You can’t be what you can’t see!” Co-creating STEM outreach resources to promote science capital in under-represented groups