Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
The INGENIUM Action Plan for Equity and Inclusion is out!
The strategy for an inclusive university addresses the most common forms of discrimination and barriers to inclusion and accessibility encountered in higher education institutions.
It covers gender, sexual orientation, disability, age, race, culture, ethnicity, and socio-economic status. Additionally, it addresses professional development, community engagement, representation and inclusive curriculum.
Since multiple forms of discrimination can coexist and create cumulative disadvantages, an intersectional approach to discrimination is vital. Intersectional lenses avoid presenting people in essentialist terms, and allow for more effective solutions to different challenges and barriers.
The INGENIUM strategy aims to:
- promote inclusion and equity within INGENIUM alliance;
- raise awareness about different discrimination forms and barriers to inclusion in higher education
- make recommendations to address specific challenges related to gender, disability, age, race, culture, ethnicity, socio-economic status
- make recommendations to encourage professional development and community engagement
- suggest concrete actions to break down certain barriers and create equal study/work/mobility opportunities for all students and staff.
The recommendations included in this document arose out of the student debates organised during the INGENIUM Summer/Winter Schools and the reflections of the EDI experts and officers (members of the WP9.1 group) from all partner universities.
All proposed recommendations and actions underline the importance of developing and implementing:
- specific training (courses/modules for students and staff);
- policies;
- networks and working groups;
- annual assessments;
- reporting systems;
- communication campaigns;
- bank of resources;
- research and data gathering.
The collection of best practices attached at the end of the document illustrates the work done by the INGENIUM partners so far, and shows inspiring examples to follow.
The core values of the Action Plan for Equity and Inclusion are reinforced by the ten principles of the INGENIUM Equity and Inclusion Charter aiming to create accountability, responsibility and commitment at individual and organisational level.
The INGENIUM alliance fully endorses the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) objective of strengthening the social dimension of higher education, and improving access to HE of under-represented and vulnerable groups. The Alliance will inspire, support and enhance the actions that the partner Universities will be taking to:
- develop a work methodology leading to the drafting of the INGENIUM Action Plan for Equity and Inclusion, tackling different barriers to inclusion: disability, gender, age, socio-economic status, nationality, culture, ethnicity, religion etc.
- create think tanks composed of INGENIUM students and staff meeting during 10 Days of INGENIUM to discuss inclusion, diversity and equity for all in higher education.
- share good practices and explore alternatives to help under-represented and disadvantaged students access funding, and provide support to foreign students.
