Gender Equality Plan

Our new strategic plan, which was approved by Council in March 2022, puts equity, diversity and inclusion at the heart of all our activities as we strive to become a more diverse, equitable and inclusive organisation. 

Although we intend to take an intersectional approach, we recognise that gender equity is vitally important to the success of our organisation. We have ambitious aims and objectives to increase our numbers of female academic staff and to create an environment in which they can thrive. 

This webpage provides a summary of our activities which focus on gender equality and also demonstrates our commitment to aligning with the Horizon Europe Gender Equality Plan. 

We have set out below how we comply with these requirements. 

Professor Nick Jennings 
Vice Chancellor 

1. Be a public document

There is no single document which encapsulates all the work underway to address gender inequality at the University. 

The work is contained in a range of action plans, most notably Athena Swan, The EDI Core Plan and the 2020-21 to 2024-25 Access and Participation Plan. Further information on the EC Gender Equality Themes is provided below. 

2. Dedicated resources

We have an array of resources that are either in full or in part dedicated to progressing our gender equality activity. These include: 

• The Chief Operating Officer is interim strategic lead for our EDI activity and a member of the University Executive Leadership. 

• Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion as the operational lead for EDI activity and a female member of the University Leadership Group. 

• EDI Services Team including a dedicated full-time officer for Sex, Gender and Sexual Orientation and a Social Impact and Inclusion Manager whose remit includes addressing sexual harassment and violence. This team work centrally to facilitate progress on gender equality and other EDI activities across the institution and host regular EDI collective forums for all EDI leads to share best practice. 

• School and professional services EDL leads (including champions for Athena Swan). 

• Governance Forums – An EDI Governance Committee and an EDI Board which oversee and monitor the progression of our gender equality work and implement action plans, respectively. 

3. Data collection and monitoring

Strategic EDI core plan targets 

The Loughborough University EDI Core Plan is a strategic vision including guiding principles and a commitment to anti-discriminatory practice implemented through coherent management and governance structures to be achieved by 2030. The plan has objectives which are supported by KPIs and actions that relate to gender equality. 

One objective is to increase the quality and range of data collected, improve data processes and intersectional analysis by improving rates of declared gender across all levels of staff (as distinct from gender assigned at birth /sex identified) and by identifying intersectional patterns in data collected. 

Another objective is to improve levels of diversity targeting areas that directly impact on student experience and organisational decision making by: 

• Improving diversity of academic staff in sex (females as assigned at birth) and declared gender. 

• Improve composition for gender to achieve 50% female membership in every main committee. 

• Improve diversity of gender amongst grant awardees to sector upper quartile. 

Gender, Race and Disability Pay Gaps 

Our Gender Pay Gap, Race Pay Gap, and Disability Pay Gap are published, along with the details of what is driving the gap and our plans to address and reduce the respective gaps as of 31 March each year. 

4. Training

Belonging and Inclusion at Loughborough 

Our mandatory EDI training for all staff, Belonging & Inclusion at Loughborough, enables delegates to reflect on how EDI issues apply to the institution as a whole and to them as individuals, while also being aware of relevant good practice policies and sources of support. The training includes content on understanding unconscious bias, including gender bias. 

LGBT Awareness  

This interactive session covers terminology, appropriate language and understanding matters affecting LGBT+ colleagues. Topics include sex, gender and allyship towards trans and non-binary people.  

Senior Leadership EDI Development Programme 

An in-depth, extensive and self-reflective 2.5 year development programme mandatory for all members of the University Leadership Group, the EDI Development programme for senior leadership uses the anti-discriminatory practice development model to take decision makers through various EDI topics including gender equality. 

More Talk and Action - Men's Wellbeing Workshop

This workshop offers a safe space in which men can talk about the challenges they face and learn practical tools to improve their health, wellbeing and coping strategies. 

1. Work-life balance and organisational culture

Loughborough University has introduced an organisational change and development initiative called Project Expectations which includes workstreams, such as a GLOW (Growth, Learning, Opportunity and Wellbeing) Framework, designed to create a more inclusive and collaborative culture, as a result the following have been/are being introduced: 

• Professional reviews which actively remove existing barriers to development and encourage conversations on individual progress, opportunity and wellbeing. 

• Family friendly policies e.g. parental leave is under review with the aim of bringing down the barriers facing women in employment and career development and encouraging greater take-up of parental leave and paternity leave. 

• Project Expectations has other workstreams which have a strong focus on equity, diversity and inclusion e.g. a review of Reward and Recognition. 

• Staff surveys outcomes are used to inform action plans for each School and Professional Service with the aim of, addressing areas of concern and improving employee experience.  

• Leaver information (including exit interviews/surveys) is being reviewed to ensure that this data is used to inform changes to working practices. We have Athena Swan targets to produce annual report on the findings from exit surveys with data disaggregated by gender. 

Staff Networks 

The MAIA - Loughborough University Women’s Network continues to advocate for change to progress gender equity. 

The LGBT+ Staff Network encompasses all staff that identify as lesbian, gay, bi, trans and any other minoritised sexual or gender identity. The network also welcome allies of the LGBT+ community and provides a space to ensure that LGBT+ staff are represented, supported, valued and have a structure through which they can highlight where institutional change is needed.  

2. Gender balance in leadership and decision-making

Loughborough’s recognises that increased gender diversity in leadership will enhance decision making, improve people development and institutional performance while inspiring everyone to challenge pervasive gender stereotypes. Loughborough’s commitment to gender diversity in leadership is reflected in our EDI strategy which includes developing a more diverse leadership through promotion, succession planning and targeted mentoring programmes and EDI awareness raising and development programmes and improving our selection and recruitment processes to promote greater opportunity for diverse membership of our senior leadership team. 

3. Gender equality in recruitment and career progression

Loughborough University’s progress in reducing the gender pay gap is positive and shows a downward trend over the last seven years.  

We have an objective to improve equitable outcomes in our EDI strategy which includes a KPI which set targets against national/sector benchmarks and internal data to decrease inequitable outcomes such as gender pay gaps and monitor via intersectional pay reviews. 

In addition, a comprehensive action plan has been developed to support with progress towards the ultimate elimination of the gender pay gap. Current actions include: 

• Review effectiveness of diverse recruitment initiatives e.g. specific jobs boards to increase female staff being recruited. 

• Review effectiveness of EDI statement, dynamic working/part time/flexible working in job adverts. 

• Introduce positive action measures for underrepresented groups at recruitment stage. 

• Develop additional support for international staff and their families, such as paying VISA costs for all new staff members. 

• Develop a single Academic job family which will include clear pathways, role descriptors, promotion criteria. 

We have specific Athena Swan targets to improve representation of female technicians by creating improve career progression by creating a more attractive work environment e.g. create more job share or part-time opportunities, consider agreed periods of working from home and encourage female technicians to do leadership training. 

4. Integration of the gender dimension into research and teaching content

Gender equality is integral to our research, for example via: Dimensions of Inequality research challenge; specialisms such as Gender and Security; and centres where gender is a prominent factor, for example, WEDC. Our academics play an important role in global initiatives on gender, for example, the Global Observatory for Gender Equality in Sport and the University has part-funded the Inclusive Engineering Excellence Hub which seeks to develop future leaders in engineering with proficiency in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) practices. 

We monitor research data for gender (and other protected characteristics) e.g. PGR intake and completion, and research grant activity and ensure that gender is prominent on key processes like REF. Our Research and Innovation Core Plan Research and Innovation Core Plan has targets for a enhancing the diversity of gender across our research and innovation grant applicants to above the sector mean by 2030. 

We continue to support institutional progress in both research and teaching through our Athena Swan submission. The gender dimension is essential to our institutional progress in relation to both research and teaching. We also support important student groups such as the Women’s Engineering Society, we celebrate our past 100 years of women engineers at Loughborough University and for our staff, we support the Loughborough University MAIA Women’s Network. 

We are embedding gender equity considerations – alongside other aspects of inclusion – in our approach to monitoring and improving the research and innovation culture at Loughborough to ensure a positive, inclusive environment where research and researchers can thrive. 

5. Measures against gender-based violence, including sexual harassment

Loughborough University is taking the following measures against gender-based violence and sexual harassment. 

• We have an updated policy position that ban’s intimate relationships and recognises the impact of unequal power (July 2024). 

• Bystander intervention education to be embedded within staff and student learning platforms. 

• We have communication and awareness raising mechanisms across student and staff life cycles to promote reporting (via online portal or text service).