An emphasis on equality

We know that we can only achieve our vision of being a world-class, forward-looking, confident and ambitious university by recruiting, supporting and developing staff from the widest variety of backgrounds.

And we have a proud history of diversity and inclusion. The University of Reading was the first English university to appoint a female professor (Edith Morley, 1908) and one of our former Vice-Chancellors (Lord Wolfenden) played a key role in decriminalising homosexuality in England and Wales.

Decolonising the Curriculum

We are proud to launch the second iteration of our Decolonising the Curriculum Resources (2023) (PDF - 3.18MB).

You can read our resources to decolonising the curriculum (PDF - 1.14MB).

Disability and Neurodiversity Review 2022

Read the Disability and Neurodiversity Review 2021 (PDF - 3MB)

Race Equality Review 2021

Read the Race Equality Review 2021 (PDF – 1.3MB)

Our priorities for progress

For our staff, there are many diversity and inclusion initiatives and activities underway in areas where we wish to make progress. We've also identified three areas as a priority for continued improvement:

• Gender. We want to enable more women to progress and participate in leadership roles.
• Ethnicity. We want to ensure that we have a diverse range of people employed across all roles, including leadership roles.
• Sexual orientation. It's important that everyone feels comfortable in being themselves at work and are confident to be open about their sexuality if they wish to do so.

Identifying priority areas is not at the exclusion of other protected characteristics; for example, we also have ongoing activities associated with disability and religious faith and belief.

For our students, we have also identified priority areas:

• Race. We want teaching, learning, assessment and student support to engage students of all races and ethnicities, and help them excel.
• Gender. Student activities should engage all genders; curriculum and practice should be proactively inclusive.
• Disability. We should proactively cater for the needs and approaches of our students with disabilities.

You can help with our understanding of how we're doing by ensuring that your personal information is up to date on Employee Self Service, and help us make progress by getting involved. You can also see how we're doing by reading our annual diversity and inclusion report.