So What Next? A Policy Response

Abstract

There are more UK-national black and minority ethnic (BME) staff working in higher education now than there were eight years ago. However while there has been a slight increase in the percentage of BME UK-national academics working in the sector, at the professoriate level, there are only 60 Black professors in the UK. This represents 0.4% of all UK-national professors. Baroness Amos, the Director of SOAS, was ‘taken aback’ to learn that she was the first Black woman to be appointed to lead a UK higher education institution, and called for more to be done to increase diversity in senior leadership. Significant issues such as career progression and retention continue to be of concern, as does the ongoing degree attainment gap between BME and white students which has implications for the pipeline of future BME academics. Written from a policy perspective, this chapter explains why a sector-wide approach is needed to address issues of racial inequality, and how the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) Race Charter Mark has started to address these issues in higher education. It explores what further collective action is required to address some of the issues raised in this book.