What is Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion?

The EDI journey is always changing. It is always evolving as we understand more about the experience of being othered and part of a minority group.

The Higher Education sector is made up of highly intelligent, focused, and innovative universities, who are shifting our world forward in many ways. Yet, as a sector, we aren't matching those strides forward with our EDI progression. To make change possible, we need to understand what EDI is, what we are missing, and then critically evaluate our progress.

EDI has to be woven into ALL aspects of the university operations with strong vision and intent.

EDI leads to better business outcomes, increased revenue, and attracts great talent from a wider pool. EDI is also shown to improve staff satisfaction and culture.

The graphics below have been created as a starting point for us to understand where EDI is now in terms of definitions.

Equality is always evolving in terms of how it relates to EDI.

Equality is about ensuring that every individual has an equal opportunity to make the most of their talents and lives. Equality recognizes that historically this has not been possible for some groups. And is now pushing towards social justice and changing the systems not seeing the deficit in the individual or group.

Bersin by Deloitte defines diversity as the variety of diverse people and ideas within a company, and the creation of an environment in which people feel involved, respected, valued, connected, and able to bring their 'authentic' selves (e.g. their ideas, backgrounds, values, perspectives) to the team and to the University.

Inclusion is really want makes equality and diversity possible. So in many ways, it should come first.

Inclusion requires the removal of barriers, whether attitudinal, structural, or societal, to allow the full and equal participation of all individuals. In a University, removing barriers could require adjustments to policies, environments, habits, cultures, as well as fostering open communication and trust.