Kingston University wins HR diversity initiative category at the Guardian University Awards

Posted Friday 28 February 2014

The Guardian Student awards Kingston University has scooped an award at the Guardian University Awards 2014 for its work in the field of equality, diversity and inclusion. The University picked up the HR Diversity Initiative award, fending off strong competition from shortlisted Keele University and the University of Sheffield.

The Guardian University Awards showcase and celebrate the outstanding innovation, creativity and impact of UK universities in delivering world-class teaching, research and engagement. Kingston won for its project that embeds equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in its new Academic Progression and Promotion process.

The Awards judging panel headed by David Ruebain (Equality Challenge Unit) said: "Diversity is important to the higher education sector for many reasons, not least in that Britain seeks to aspire to, and in many respects attains, excellence in higher education. The winner of this category took a very granulated approach to thinking about the issue and looking to bring together a range of different identities to really address historic areas of chronic under representation and disadvantage."

The HR Diversity Initiative award was collected on behalf of Kingston University by Nona, the EDI team and Vice-Chancellor Julius Weinberg.

Nona said: "We are so pleased to be recognised for this initiative as it represents our approach to embedding EDI in ‘mainstream' university work. We love using quantitative and qualitative data, research and our understanding of the HE environment to bring EDI to life for people. The award and the fact Julius was there to support us has already given the EDI team fresh energy. We are excited about our other projects which we hope will also be recognised as examples of excellence in higher education."

Kingston University wins HR Diversity Initiative award at the Guardian University Awards