SDG5 / Gender Equality in Student Population

Goal 5 of the 17 Sustainability Goals is to achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. As set out in the SDG’s women’s equal participation in decision making it is crucial if we are to achieve gender equality by 2030 in the world. A target quite unattainable if we continue as we have always done. 

Leadership is key to driving institutional change and thankfully in UL our Human Rights-EDI agenda is driven from the top.  We are committed to building and maintaining an inclusive environment which promotes equality, values, diversity and respects the rights and dignity of our staff and students. We embrace equality, diversity and inclusion through our people, structures, actions, values and culture.

Gender imbalance in undergraduate, postgraduate (taught and research) programmes and graduate outcomes are tracked and monitored as part of the Athena Swan process. 

Each faculty (KBS, EHS, AHSS, SciEng) and department in the institution has an Athena Swan/EDI Self-Assessment Team  (see committee structures) which places gender equality and EDI as a key agenda item on all departmental meetings.

Specific targeted and time bound actions are drafted to tackle gender imbalance in student recruitment or award attainment where evident.

See our institution gender action plan for details on the issues we are tackling across equality grounds.