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School of Environment, Education and Development

An update on findings from the SEED Influence, Respect and Being Heard Survey

19 May 2026

SEED's Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Laura Winter, updates staff on actions taken as a result of findings from the Influence, Respect and Being Heard Survey

As you will be aware, in 2025 the SEED EDI team reported on research which explored staff views and experiences of influence, respect and being heard in the school.

In the 12 months since colleagues completed the survey we've focussed on addressing the issues highlighted by our analysis, and I am writing now to update you on what we have done.

As a reminder, a summary of the findings and a link to the full report can be found in this article shared in September last year: Responding to findings from the Influence, Respect and Being Heard Survey | StaffNet | The University of Manchester

Since this report:

  • Several members of our SEED school executive are now taking part in the first University pilot of a Reverse Mentoring programme. This pairs leaders with colleagues from other parts of the University, often who have different positionalities and backgrounds/protected characteristics, and who have been involved in EDI leadership programmes previously. The programme centres lived experience and aims to further facilitate leaders' understanding of different experiences of working at Manchester. Through the programme, leaders commit to change which will enhance the culture of SEED and beyond. The central EDI team are running this and will be conducting an evaluation of the programme on completion
  • We have ensured that all of our 4 bigger departments now have a forum meeting chair, allowing for separation between the Head of Department role and the chairing of departmental meetings
  • We have begun a piece of work on enhancing transparency and equity in the process of advertisement and recruitment to departmental leadership roles, starting with 6 core roles we have in each department. This approach mirrors the work we had already completed with school executive roles
  • A further 31 colleagues have attended the active bystander training run by colleagues from the central EDI team. This takes us to a total of 86 colleagues taking part since 2023. We will soon be scheduling two further sessions for the 2026/27 and encouraging people to sign up as we want this total to be even higher
  • We rolled out our 'Take a Moment' campaign, with posters in meeting rooms across our three buildings, and resources for chairs to use at the start of meetings to remind people of our SEED Inclusive Meeting Guidance
  • We ran a successful session on chairing an inclusive meetings, attended by departmental forum chairs and others in the school. Resources for this session have been developed which we are now sharing widely with colleagues, to ensure greater impact, encouraging for example the use of amplification in meetings, and giving tips on how to run inclusive hybrid meetings: SEED Tips for inclusive meetings

Further work is also ongoing to develop policies and practices which support inclusive leadership beyond the actions detailed above, and I will update on these in due course.

I hope this has been useful as an update on our progress to action the findings from last year. There is undoubtedly still work to do, but I genuinely hope that some of the changes we are making do make a difference to the working lives of everyone in SEED.

Once again, many thanks to those of you who took the time to complete the survey - it is your contributions that have led to this important work to ensure our SEED community is more inclusive. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to reach out via edi.seed@manchester.ac.uk.