Race Equality Charter FAQs
Frequently asked questions about the Race Equality Charter
Frequently asked questions about the Race Equality Charter
Please see the Join ECU's Race Equality Charter page for further details.
ECU recognises that undertaking a self-assessment and applying for an award takes time. The starting point is agreeing to the five guiding Charter principles by sending a letter of commitment from the head of your institution (a draft letter template is available in the Resources section). From that point your institution is officially a member of ECU's Race Equality Charter, with access to the members’ logo.
Once you are a member you will want to continue your work in race equality and work towards a full application. Members are are required to apply for a Bronze award within three years of membership. Successful applicants become award holders and are able to use the relevant award logo.
If a member institution fails to apply within three years of membership, their Charter membership will be withdrawn. If there are extenuating circumstances, these should be discussed with ECU well in advance of membership expiring.
We would expect your institution to start with a Bronze application before moving on to a Silver. The application form and process is the same for all levels, but the expectations are different.
A Bronze award recognises that the institution has a solid foundation for eliminating racial inequalities and developing an inclusive culture that values all staff and students. A Bronze award acknowledges commitment and preparation to act.
Applications should be candid about any issues identified and state clearly how they plan to address them. At Bronze level it is anticipated that your institution will have developed specific actions and initiatives, albeit these may not have yet been implemented.
In addition to the requirements for a Bronze award, a Silver award recognises a significant record of activity and achievement by the institution in promoting race equality and in addressing challenges across the whole institution. Applications should demonstrate that equality is well embedded within the institution with strong leadership in promoting the charter principles, and evidence of the impact of race equality activities. Crucially, where progress has been made, the institution should be able to trace the cause.
We estimate that for first-time applicants who are at the early stages of considering their race-specific work, it is likely to take 18 months to apply for an award, from the point at which the self assessment team has been convened. Institutions need time to assess what issues might exist and to determine what to do in response.
If you have a track record in race equality and have already begun developing actions in response, the process may be quicker.
ECU's Race Equality Charter includes both staff and student-focused sections. To achieve a Bronze award your institution will need to meet Bronze standard across the piece (albeit it is likely that some areas will be more developed than others).
We expect institutions to run the survey before applying to the Charter, and before re-applying every three years. The timing of the survey is important and you will want to spend time analysing the results as part of your self-assessment. We would therefore anticipate you running the survey up to a year ahead of your actual application submission.
Institutions that are unsuccessful may want to resubmit before it would be viable for them to rerun the survey. In these instances, the original survey data is valid for two years. For example, if you run a survey in February 2016 and apply in February 2017, the survey data would be valid for a resubmission in July 2017, or February 2018 (which is two years after the original survey was conducted).
After this point institutions should rerun the survey to ensure the results are up-to-date.
Information about membership and fees for applications can be found on our Join ECU's Race Equality Charter page.
The total word limits:
We do not stipulate how the words should be spread over each section, it is for you to decide. At the end of every section, please state how many words you have used in that section.
The word count includes:
The word count excludes:
Requests for additional word allowances to account for exceptional circumstances are considered on a case-by-case basis. Examples of where such awards may be made include where a restructure has recently taken place, or where the submitting institution has a unique or unusual structure, or is subject to particular constraints.
If granted, additional words should only be used to explain how the special circumstances have impacted or been taken into account with respect to Race Equality Charter activities and the progression of race equality.
Applicants who wish to extend their word limit in this way should contact ECU’s Equality Charters team for approval at least two months in advance of the submission deadline. Where additional words are granted, the increased allowance will be at the discretion of ECU.
Qualitative quotes are excluded from the word count. Individual quotes must not exceed 50 words, and institutions should be discerning in the number of quotes used. It is not anticipated that institutions will use more than four or five quotes in relevant sections.
Yes. We know that UK and international staff and students can have very different experiences in UK higher education. Attempting to analyse combined data may lead to issues being overlooked or misinterpreting trends that are identified.
Considering UK and non-UK staff and students helps to ensure that solutions are appropriate and targeted in the right way.
Where possible, yes. We realise that some institutions will have very small numbers of minority ethnic staff and students and that can make data analysis difficult. At institutional level, please try to analyse the data in as much detail as possible.
Where this is not possible, please explain that in your commentary and explain how your institution has progressed analysis and understanding and developed your aims and actions.
We would anticipate benchmarking your professional and support staff against local population data, with some consideration given to where your staff commute from, to get a sense of the diversity of your applicant population.
For academic staff we would anticipate your institution being able to recruit from further afield, albeit acknowledging the potential limitations of your geographic location.
For students, we would anticipate you understanding where you recruit your students from, and creating an appropriate benchmark. For example, if many of your students are recruited from the local community, that is what you should benchmark against. If you recruit your students from across the UK, we would anticipate you using national benchmarks.
There is no need to benchmark your international students, apart from comparing their performance and satisfaction with your national/UK students.
Where it is possible to conduct faculty level analysis please provide this data, or provide an overview of the demographics in your commentary if the numbers are too small.
People’s identities and social positions are shaped by several factors at the same time, creating unique experiences and perspectives. These factors include, among others, age, disability, gender identity, pregnancy and maternity status, race, religion, sex and sexuality.
For example, the experiences of, and outcomes within, higher education will be very different for a Black woman compared to a white woman. In practice, intersectionality is less about bringing two different factors together, (eg older people and disabled people) and more about considering the experience of older disabled people, people at the ‘intersection’ of older age and disability.
Within your Race Equality Charter application we expect intersectionality to be considered increasingly as you progress your race equality work. For first-time Bronze applicants, this consideration might be aspirational (for example to begin building in mechanisms to understand and explore intersectionality).
As institutions apply to renew their Bronze award or move on to a Silver award, this thinking should be respectively more advanced; strategies and actions should be more nuanced, reflecting the complexity of multiple identities.
ECU's Equality charters team are happy to answer questions about membership or award applications by phone or email: Contact us. However, please read these FAQs and the awards handbook thoroughly in advance of getting in touch. Please note that staff will not comment on content of award submissions or read through submissions prior to the deadline.
The Equality charters team are receptive to invitations to attend events and workshops depending on capacity and will respond to invitations on a case-by-case basis.
Comprehensive feedback on submissions is given, whether successful or unsuccessful. The Equality charters team will attempt to field specific questions arising from the feedback, but are unable to comment on the panel’s judgment.
Please note that at peak times of the year (notably around submission deadlines and while assessment panels are taking place) it may take longer than usual to respond to your query.
ECU can advise applicants on the process and respond to specific queries about a submission. However, we cannot read through entire submissions or comment on content. Any input from the Race Equality Charter team is purely advisory, and will not affect the final decision of the panel.
ECU aims to release the results five months after the submission deadline. Feedback is also sent for applications which were unsuccessful. For those that were successful both at the level applied for and at a lower level, the feedback will be sent after the results are announced.
Applicants that receive awards should publish their submission on their own websites and inform ECU of the associated web address. Any personal or confidential information should be removed from the submission prior to doing this.
There is now a process for appeals and objections, please see ECU's Equality Charters Guide to processes
ECU's Race Equality Charter awards are valid for three years from the application deadline.