We are proud to be a member of the Athena Swan Charter recognising employment practices which promote gender equality.

The Charter was established by the Equality Challenge Unit in 2005 to combat the under representation of women working in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM).  In May 2015 the Charter expanded to include arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law.  The Charter now also covers the career progression of Professional Support and Technical colleagues working in the Higher Education sector.  

The Athena Swan Charter is based on ten key principles.  By being part of Athena Swan, we commit to adopting these principles within our policies, practice, action plans and culture.

We are one of a few UK universities to hold an Institutional Athena Swan Silver award.  Our Silver Application and Action Plan demonstrates the impact of our activities and our commitment to developing an inclusive culture that values all colleagues. 

Our Faculty of Medical Sciences also holds a Silver Athena Swan award and 12 of our academic units have received a Bronze Athena Swan award.

Embedding our commitment in University Practice 

We are proud of our maternity policy which offers colleagues, from day 1 of employment, 18 weeks of leave at full pay.  We are one of the few universities who pay no attention to how long you have worked for us when accessing these benefits.

We are also in the process of developing a menopause policy.  This policy recognises that the menopause is an equality and occupational health and safety issue and that women may need appropriate flexibility, support and adjustments during the time of change before, during and after the menopause.

Join our Network!

NU Women supports all women employed at Newcastle University. The network is open to anyone who works at the university and we provide a voice for colleagues working in every aspect of the university, at all levels.

Our strategic aims are:

• To support women working at Newcastle University in their careers.
• To be a voice for women and feed into institutional structures.
• To raise awareness around gender and diversity issues.
• To build active communities and networks.

We work alongside all colleagues to facilitate change and improvements for women employed at Newcastle University and we frequently partner with other networks across the university, to ensure we promote awareness of all relevant issues impacting women colleagues.

More than 50 years ago Newcastle University awarded Dr Martin Luther King Jr. an honorary doctorate in Civil Law.  We are proud of this legacy and committed to promoting race equality and inclusion across our UK and global campuses.  We use the framework of the Race Equality Charter to focus our work around race equality.  

The Charter is underpinned by five fundamental guiding principles.  Newcastle University has committed to adopt these principles in all its work in addressing racial inequalities.

Read the Working towards the Race Equality Charter October 2020 Action Plan and Workstreams

Embedding our commitment in University Practice 

We want to create inclusive environments and support the wellbeing of colleagues, students, and visitors, and have a zero-tolerance policy towards inappropriate behaviours.  All colleagues and students who have experienced an incident can use the Report+Support tool to make an anonymous report or a named report which includes their contact details. Reports can also be made on behalf of another colleague or student. Visitors can also make a report, as the supporting articles within the tool are open to everyone.

Our EDI training lead has also recently led in the development of essential training programmes such as Active Bystander Training and Unconscious Bias Training, which have piloted in the last few months.

Join our Network!

NU-REN: the NU Race Equality Network is a vibrant cross-faculty network for colleagues and PGR students from minoritised backgrounds.  It serves as a community of support and a platform of institutional engagement.

We aim to provide a safe, respectful and inclusive environment in which everyone can flourish and be the best they can be.  We work hard to ensure that they:

• remove barriers that prevent people with a disability from enjoying equality
• understand individual needs and can provide appropriate support
• monitor the impact of our policies and procedures on our colleagues, students and visitors who have a disability
• promote positive attitudes towards disability, access and inclusion

Reasonable Adjustments

We encourage colleagues to let us know about a disability or long-term health condition so that reasonable adjustments can be made.  Having reasonable workplace adjustments in place means that you can work safely and flourish in the workplace. 

Some types of adjustment include: 

• equipment (for example assistive computer software or an adjustable height desk)  
• adjustments to workplaces or the physical environment 
• adjustments to a colleague’s duties or working routine (for example flexible working) 
• transcription of written materials into accessible formats (for example Braille or large print) 
• the services of a support worker (for example, a job coach, personal assistant or sign-language interpreter) 
• adjustments to expectations under sickness absence management 

Our dedicated Disability Advisor can support you with requesting this.

Embedding Disability Awareness in University Practice 

We are working to increase awareness and improve culture across the University and have introduced several training courses; including Understanding Autism, and Mental Health and Wellbeing Awareness. 

The University is also a member of the Business Disability Forum, a national network promoting good practice in all areas of disability inclusion.  We can access member resources as well as the general information on the website. 

Disability Confident

We are a Disability Confident employer and will offer an interview to disabled applicants who meet the essential criteria for the role and have opted to be part of the 'offer an interview scheme'.  In order to be invited to interview, you are required to meet all of the essential criteria outlined in 'The Person' section of the job specification. 

You are recognised as disabled under the Equality Act 2010, if you have a physical or mental impairment that has a 'substantial' and 'long-term' adverse effect on your ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities.  This means that, in general, the:

• person must have an impairment that is either physical or mental
• impairments must have adverse effects that are substantial
• substantial adverse effects must be long-term, generally taken to mean for longer than 12 months
• long-term substantial adverse effects must be effects on normal day-to-day activities, such as a breathing condition that impedes walking or moving around, or a mental health condition that impedes interacting with other people.  A condition that impedes participation in high level competitive sport, or that prevented playing a musical instrument to concert level performance, but that still allowed normal day-to-day activities, would generally not be seen as a disability under the Equality Act 

Join our Network!

Our Disability Interest Group (NU DIG) is a colleague and student network which aims to:

• promote accessibility and inclusion
• encourage good practice in all the University does
• promote positive attitudes towards disability
• provide a forum for sharing ideas, experiences and expertise
• influence University decision making and policy development

A Neurodiversity peer support group on Yammer has also recently launched.  This is a private group for colleagues who can come together to discuss challenges, share experiences, strategies and offer advice.  The group is open to colleagues who have, or believe they may have, neuro-diverse conditions such as dyslexia, dyspraxia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD and ASD.

As a Stonewall Global Diversity Champion, we are finding even more ways to ensure Newcastle is Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) and non-binary inclusive.

We joined the Global Diversity Champion Programme in 2016 as we want to ensure this commitment extends to all colleagues and students across all of our locations in Singapore, Malaysia and the UK.  Stonewall membership provides us access to a vast bank of information, experience and knowledge, helping us to ensure that all LGBT colleagues are accepted without exception in the workplace. 

We are working towards applying for the 'Stonewall Workplace Equality Index' in 2023.

Embedding our commitment in University Practice 

Our new Colleague Transitioning at Work Policy (internal link) and Managers Guidance documents were developed in collaboration with our Rainbow@NCL LGBT Network. They provide a framework to support trans, transitioning and non-binary colleagues at the University and provide managers with a better understanding of the needs of transitioning and trans colleagues and to steer them through the support process.  It is also for trans colleagues to use as an outline of the University's responsibilities towards them and how other colleagues can offer their support. 

Join our Network!

Our colleague and PGR network, Rainbow@NCL, was established by and for members of the University community with the purpose of: 

• providing peer support to LGBT colleagues and students 
• challenging heteronormativity 
• promoting inclusion of people of diverse genders, sexualities, and relationships 
• embedding LGBT in university policies

Rainbow@NCL is open to colleagues and PGR students of all genders and sexualities, across all grades and job roles.  We engage in and provide advocacy, education, celebration and promotion of diversity and inclusion and influencing policy (such as the Transitioning at Work policy mentioned above) on all matters relevant to LGBT inclusion. 

Newcastle University is committed to providing the very best support to colleagues with and caring responsibilities either as a parent or as an unpaid carer, and enable them to reach their full potential as they work and study with us. It is against this backdrop that the For Families initiative – a three-year project to transform NU into a visibly leading family-friendly institution and providing the very best support to all members of our community with caring responsibilities – was approved by our Executive Board in 2018. 

The ‘For Families’ project has actively listened to the diverse experiences of colleagues and students, and with them, developed and implemented an extensive programme of work to address the key challenges we’ve identified.  This includes both high level issues such as organisational culture and childcare provision as well as smaller, more detailed amendments to specific policies and practices.  Our aim is to be fully inclusive and to embrace the diversity in parenting experience, that everyone is enabled to be the very best they can be.

Embedding our commitment in University Practice 

Family Leave Policies  

Regardless of your length of service, we offer full occupational pay for all forms of family leave (maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave).  We also have increased our paternity leave entitlement for colleagues to 4 weeks at full pay, and are in the process of reviewing provision for colleagues who foster and those who are going through fertility treatment.

To access these policies, please click on the following links:

Maternity/Pregnancy Policy

Paternity/Partner Policy

Adoption Policy

Family Time Policy

Agile Working 

We want to support colleagues in maintaining a good work life balance, and recognise that a little flexibility can sometimes make a lot of difference.  This includes flexi-time, part-time, job sharing, remote working, and term-time contracts. 

Returners Support Programme 

Designed to provide flexible, tailored support  for all colleagues (Academic and Professional Services) to reduce the impact of extended parental leave on the delivery of their activities and thereby enable them to maintain career development. 

Childcare Support  

Through Childcare Coordinator, Susan Matheson, we provide flexible and individualised support to colleagues and students (both current and in-coming) in relation to both routine and emergency childcare solutions. 

Employer for Carers 

The University’s membership to ‘Employers for Carers’ (EfC) administered by Carers UK provides both colleagues and students with rich digital resources and options for carers to benefit from additional practical support in the University.

Join our Network!

The NU Parents Networkis run by parents for parents toprovide informal peer-to-peer support, organise events and gather feedback to inform and influence change.

The NU Carers Network aims to provide a space for members to meet up every two months. Meetings are very informal and you can choose to share as much or as little information about your situation as you choose. They are a good opportunity to ask questions - things you've been wondering about but didn't really know who to ask.