How we monitor equality data

We collect information about our students and staff that helps us to understand the make-up of our community and what progress we are making on equality, diversity and inclusion.

By answering the diversity monitoring questions we ask, you will help us to identify gaps and take targeted action to achieve our ambition of a culturally rich, diverse and inclusive community. 

We will never publish the information in a way that it can be used to identify individuals.

This information helps us to:

• Understand the diversity of our university community
• Better meet the needs of our diverse community
• See the impact our work has on diverse students and staff
• Know what progress we are making with equality, diversity and inclusion
• Demonstrate compliance with the law

The data we collect and how we collect it

We collect data related to age, disability, ethnicity, religion and belief, sex/gender, sexuality and transgender identity. We also ask students about being a carer or a care leaver so our dedicated officer can contact you about the support and benefits you may be entitled to.

We collect data from our students at the point of application either directly to the university or through UCAS.

We collect data from staff through the recruitment process and through an annual request to update your staff record.

What we do with the data

The data enables us to monitor the diversity of our student and staff population and identify whether we need to do more to recruit or retain people with diverse identities and backgrounds. We use the information to check progress against our equality objectives, to improve our policies and practices and provide equality of opportunity and outcome to all students and staff. The information also helps us to identify gaps and barriers.

We report on our student and staff population annually to the Board of Governors and publish diversity monitoring data on our website. Every year, we send some of the information we hold about our students and staff to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). This forms your HESA record which includes information about your age, disability status, ethnicity, sex, as well as gender identity, sexual orientation, and religion or belief, should you choose to provide it. This information assists with nationwide monitoring of equality of opportunity and eliminating unlawful discrimination in accordance with the Equality Act. HESA cannot use the anonymised data in any way to identify individuals.

Find out about the University's Data Protection Policy.

Read how HESA processes equality data (external website).

If you don't want to give information

You do not have to give information (with some exceptions), but it will help you and the wider student and staff community as well as the University if you do.

We will be able to know how we are doing, in particular whether people from all backgrounds are represented and have the same opportunities and outcomes, and where we may need to do more. If you do not wish to give information, then you can choose the 'prefer not to say' option for any field. We will record this as 'Unknown', and exclude your record from analysis of these fields.