Unified planning for equality of opportunity: A whole-university approach
UoN’s comprehensive Education and Student Experience Strategic Delivery Plan (ESE SDP) fosters equal access and participation across the entire institution. APP principles underpin all endeavours spanning education, research, support and wellbeing, community partnerships, and digital innovations.
The ESE SDP prioritises inclusivity, wellbeing, diversifying student intake, and providing support for students who are typically under-represented in higher education. Equality considerations are embedded into curriculum design, programme reviews, reasonable adjustment policies, contextual offers, and anti-racism education initiatives.
The Civic Strategic Delivery Plan aligns seamlessly, fostering partnerships with local communities on widening participation activities to support aspirations, access, and attainment among underrepresented groups. Curriculum co-design with these partners ensures diverse voices shape an inclusive culture.
UoN is also committed to local and regional educational improvement programmes, including the Nottingham Education Improvement Board and works closely with the Department for Education (DfE) on the Derby and Nottingham Priority Areas programme.
UoN's commitment to student wellbeing
UoN's new Mental Health and Wellbeing strategy, developed through extensive co-creation with students and staff, demonstrates a holistic approach to promoting continuation, progression, and improved attainment. Guided by the step-change framework and the vision of empowering students, this collaborative strategy recognises that poor mental health often stems from inequality, oppression, and exclusion.
The strategy’s mission focuses on fostering a positive culture shift across all aspects of university life, emphasising shared responsibility in providing accessible and timely support. Evidence-based monitoring, evaluation, and the development of a Wellbeing Assessment Toolkit ensure a reflective, inclusive process that considers the impact on student wellbeing from the outset. This work is further enhanced with UoN's University Mental Health Charter Programme and its alignment with the Health and Wellbeing Strategy.
Prior to the development of the strategy, UoN's commitment to supporting student mental health was evident through substantial improvements in whole-university structures aimed at enhancing access to support interventions for students with mental health conditions, including those that may be considered disabled.
These improvements encompass several key initiatives:
In the academic year 2021/22, we introduced a "Hub and Spoke" Student Support and Wellbeing team. This team includes Student Support and Wellbeing Officers stationed in academic schools. Their role is to facilitate early disclosure of mental health concerns and provide interventions tailored to students' specific academic contexts. This structure is designed to seamlessly integrate with personal tutor systems and enable effective referral to specialist practitioners as needed.
Additionally, a Mental Health Advisory Service operates in conjunction with this structure. This service offers specialised support for students grappling with ongoing or acute mental health issues. It manages partnership relationships with general practitioners and NHS mental health services, ensuring students have easy access to community support services. UoN has established multidisciplinary support networks that span academic, residential, and social environments. These networks ensure coordinated interventions and support plans for students with significant support requirements related to their mental health.
The university has established a Student Wellbeing Advisory Panel. This panel plays a vital role in co-creating and reviewing support services and communications, ensuring they are responsive to student needs. UoN's commitment to student mental health is further demonstrated through its engagement with the University Mental Health Charter award programme.
This robust approach to student wellbeing, coupled with a new attendance and engagement system, allows for early identification of disengaging students, especially those from underrepresented groups like mature learners. Personalised outreach strategies increase the chances of retention, progression, and attainment by fostering a sense of belonging throughout the student lifecycle.
UoN's Belonging Toolkit complements these efforts, encouraging staff to deliberately cultivate an environment that promotes equity, inclusion, and progression for all learners.
The Learning and Development strategy expands professional development opportunities for all staff, aiming to enhance education and training, especially around APP themes like the Black White degree awarding gap. Woven through all these strategies is the digital accessibility strategy, which is linked to our commitment to Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations (PSBARs), and which has led to significant progress in the last two years in the accessibility of teaching and learning. The Learning and Development strategy is intentionally designed to facilitate positive cultural change and equitable student experiences.
UoN stands out as one of the most sought-after universities by leading recruiters, as highlighted in the 2024 Graduate Market report by High Fliers Research. We achieve this through using an evidence-based approach in delivering activities and services aimed at maximising progression outcomes for all groups of students.
Our Careers and Employability Service (CES) offers a range of support targeted at students with disabilities or long-term health conditions. For example, CES runs an online course which allows students to explore available support options when considering their career paths. We run an autism mentoring programme and the East Midlands Disability Conversation event, which brings together students from local institutions. This event aims to provide insights from workplace speakers, facilitate the sharing of stories, and help students prepare for the transition to the workplace. Our commitment to support for neurodiversity is led by the Faculty of Science’s NEO-Next and NEO-Now programmes. These support a more neurodiverse workforce by providing students and the local community with employment opportunities.
UoN recognises the important role of Degree Apprenticeships in widening access to higher education in specific higher order skills-shortage areas. To grow our provision, and the quality of our support for apprentices, we have established an Institute for Professional and Work-Based Learning. The Institute works with employers to develop provision reflective of our research strengths, with a particular emphasis on Data, Digital, Biomedical and Health Sciences, and Engineering.
UoN is committed to aligning our monitoring, continuous improvement, and periodic review processes with our APP targets to ensure accountability towards our risk groups' performance. This involves evaluating school and department-level performance, informed by data aligned with potential equality of opportunity risks. We integrate student partners and voice mechanisms, as well as external perspectives, to ensure rigorous and expertise-led practices.