An update from Laura Winter, SEED’s Director for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
25 Apr 2025
Progress on our EDI objectives and Athena Swan commitments, what’s coming up, and the part we all play in ensuring SEED is an inclusive school
On behalf of the SEED EDI team, I’d like to update you on this year’s progress in relation to our five main EDI objectives and our Athena Swan achievement plan commitments. Firstly though, a quick reminder that you can find information on the SEED EDI team and the School’s EDI objectives, plus recommended actions and useful guidance on our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in SEED page on StaffNet.
1. Belonging, influence and respect
This year, we launched our SEED Inclusive Meeting Guidance, to support both meeting organisers and attendees, please do familiarise yourself with this, and discuss with your teams.
Active bystander training is now a mandatory course for our SLT and PSLT and 55 SEED staff and PGRs have now engaged in the training since 2023. We have a goal of a minimum 30 completions each year, and plan to announce more sessions shortly.
Following the UK Supreme Court ruling that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the 2010 Equality Act refer to a ‘biological woman’ and ‘biological sex’, I’d like to further reiterate our support and solidarity for trans colleagues and students. The University has now communicated a central message on the court ruling. The Bee Proud Staff Network (formerly LGBT+ ALLOUT group) provide support and resources and also training for allies (TSL154 is available in-person or online). In SEED, our trans awareness training has been completed by 114 staff and PGRs since 2023, with great feedback, and we hope to announce further sessions soon.
This year, we ran an intersectionality project speaking with racially minoritised women and/or who identify as under the trans umbrella working in the school to find out more about their experiences. The report is now available online, having been presented to SLT, and we are now working on the responding actions.
To better understand SEED staff experiences and opinions on influence and respect, we are currently seeking responses to a survey open to all SEED colleagues, if you are yet to respond, please spare a few minutes to share your views, and guide our future work.
2. Inclusive teaching, supervision and student support
Our PGR supervisor EDI training continues to be well received, with successful sessions looking at supporting our international PGRs, and racially minoritised PGRs (many thanks to the facilitators!). Next year, we hope that these sessions will be rolled out at Faculty level, increasing our impact, which is fantastic.
Work continues to consider EDI in relation to our teaching, and as part of the Teaching Matters series, we’ll be discussing ‘Designing Assessment Practices with EDI in mind’ on Wednesday, 25 June, 10.30am - 12pm in B2.4, Ellen Wilkinson Building. We will be introducing a framework to facilitate reflection on inclusive assessment, drawing insights from successful initiatives in other areas of the university, please register and come along if you can.
This year, we also funded the Anti-Racism Teaching Network via the EDI Projects Fund (see drop-down section), and the network continues to go from strength to strength under the leadership of Umit and Sadia. Look out for future events via email.
3. Fair leadership and progression
Though much of what we can do in relation to this area of work is shaped by faculty and university changes, the promotions and progression study we ran in 2024-25 allowed us to introduce a few key changes to the academic promotions process at school level this year. For example, people were able to be matched to others who had successfully applied at the same level and down the same track in the previous year, and we provided further information on ‘mitigating circumstances’. We are also in the process of conducting an EDI-review of the outcomes of the School Promotions Committee, which will shape next year’s activity in this area. Outcomes of our study in relation to PS progression are currently being looked at at faculty level.
After the successful Humanities Promotions Workshop for Global Majority Academics organised by SEED last year, Faculty has now committed to running three annual targeted promotions workshops, which will run in May to give colleagues lots of times to progress with applications and to follow up with things at local levels. The promotions workshops are now available for registration:
- Wed 7 May, 10am-11.30am: for global majority/racially minoritised academics
- Thu 8 May, 12.30pm-2pm: for women academics
- Tue 13 May, 2pm – 3.30pm: for disabled academics
We have created SEED Guidance for Senior Colleagues on Encouraging Promotions– outlining expectations on encouraging staff in relation to both promotion and senior leadership roles. We are continuing to review P&DR processes for academics across the school, with SLT convening a working group for this.
4. Supporting staff and students with caring responsibilities
As the Resources section of SEED StaffNet takes shape, we are ensuring that support for those with caring responsibilities is clear. We continue to promote the Academic Returners’ Policy, which offers funding of up to £8,000 for academic colleagues returning from an extended leave period of 6 months or more (eight SEED colleagues have benefited so far). In SEED, we also have the SEED Conference Caregiving Policy that can help fund caregiving costs, and a dedicated Parent and Carers room in the Arthur Lewis Building.
At our last School Board, we also learned more about the Future Families Project which is progressing at University level. If you missed it, please do check out the slides here: Future Families Project SEED 2025.pptx
5. Ongoing support for when things go wrong
This year we have initiated our confidential listening meetings and have met with several colleagues across SEED to discuss historical or current experiences of inappropriate behaviour. In each meeting we have been able to signpost colleagues to the available sources of support, which we are aware that people don’t always know about or may have heard of but aren’t sure how those systems work.
Our next confidential listening meeting will take place on Wednesday 9th July, 9am – 12pm – please email edi.seed@manchester.ac.uk if you’d like a slot.
We continue to distribute our SEED guidance on responding to bullying, discrimination and harassment. We also ran a successful training for line managers for the first time this year, where colleagues were provided with information on the best way to respond when someone comes to them with a concern. Inputs from the central EDI team on Report and Support, our People Partner, and the Employee Relations team were all useful.
Finally, I’d like to thank all those that are working hard to minimise systemic inequities and make sure SEED is an inclusive school, and to those who have provided honest feedback on their experiences – both positive and negative - to help inform our ways of working moving forward.
As ever, for any EDI matters in SEED, you can reach me and the team via edi.SEED@manchester.ac.uk
Take care,
Laura