About YCEDE

OfS, Research England and YCEDE partners have committed to invest more than £4 million over 4 years to improve access and participation of Black, Asian and minority ethnic people in postgraduate research study across Yorkshire.

Our project is divided into four workstreams (WS) led by different people and involving all partners:

WS1: Improving access to PG research degrees

WS1 Leads: Pippa Chapman, Louise Banahene and Christina Robinson, University of Leeds
WS1 will work to remove barriers to information and advice on PG research degrees and also provide opportunities to carry out research via research internships. WS activities include:
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Creation of the YCEDE Black, Asian and minority ethnic Scholars Network (YBSN) of potential PGRs

A programme of on-line events for the YBSN, providing advice sessions for preparing PhD applications, funding, life as a PGR student, and careers etc

Establishing the YCEDE Research Internship Scheme that will provide ring-fenced research internships

Coordinating the advertising of > 21 ring-fenced PhD studentships plus bespoke training and mentoring for Black, Asian and minority ethnic candidates which will put us in the vanguard of efforts to encourage talented students from these backgrounds to consider PG research

WS2: PGR recruitment and selection for equity and diversity

WS2 Leads: Paul Wakeling and Avtar Matharu, University of York
YCEDE will work to improve access by addressing selection criteria and admissions practices in the consortium. This will be a form of ‘contextualised admissions’ for PGR level. WS2 will:
Black and white photo of Heslington Hall at the University of York

Document selection processes and practices, including criteria employed and the role of individual selectors

Analyze successful and unsuccessful applications by students from different ethnicities to identify any salient features

Identify any outlier programmes which exhibit already very positive offer and enrolment rates for Black, Asian and minority ethnic applicants

Cascade results and reforms across the consortium and beyond, including the creation of a training workshop programme for staff at partner institutions and DTPs/CDTs

[1] Slay et al 2019 The Review of HE Special Issue 2019, Volume 42, Supplement, pp. 255–286 Association for the Study of HE.

WS 3: Enhancing the on-course PGR experience

WS3 Leads: Asha Akram (University of Sheffield), Esther Allen (UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD) & Udy Archibong (University of Bradford)

Research1 suggests that the long term diversity ambitions of YCEDE will be undermined unless we attend to the lived experiences of Black, Asian and minority ethnic PGRs, as well as to behavioural changes among academic and support staff and other students. WS3 will establish:

Sheffield and Bradford Universities

Mentoring scheme that will build upon insight from consultations with Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, PGR and student networks, as well as the Stuart Hall Foundation, to design a bespoke and tailored mentoring package and practices that will be shared across the consortium.

Training for mentors who can then offer support, provide space to discuss career goals, skills etc.

Mentoring scheme that will build upon insight from consultations with Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff, PGR and student networks, as well as the Stuart Hall Foundation, to design a bespoke and tailored mentoring package and practices that will be shared across the consortium.

[1] Slay et al 2019 The Review of HE Special Issue 2019, Volume 42, Supplement, pp. 255–286 Association for the Study of HE.
Photography:
University of Bradford – SteveH-UoB, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
University of Sheffield – Tim Green from Bradford, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

WS 4: Evaluating and disseminating our activities

WS4 Leads: Lucy Clague and Colin McCaig, Sheffield Hallam University
WS4 will carry out a rigorous evaluation of the YCEDE Programme and provide an evidence base to share widely across the HE sector and beyond.
Sheffield university

At the start of the project and throughout we will collect data from staff, students and PGRs from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds in terms of their experiences and perspectives of research training.

We will develop our programme 'theory of change' which will clearly identify what success looks like for the YCEDE project, the universities involved and external partners.

Throughout the project we will monitor the effectiveness (or not) of the activities and interventions by collecting and analysing quantitative and qualitative data.

We will feedback our findings to the project team on an ongoing basis to inform its development, and create a programme of national dissemination of our methods, activities and findings throughout the project.

YCEDE partner universities

In addition to the universities below, we are also involved in UKRI funded Doctoral Training Partnerships and Centres of Doctoral Training which have also committed resources to training students and PGRs.

Bradford

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Sheffield

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Sheffield Hallam

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The legislative context

The Equality Act 2010 section 158 (general) and section 159 (recruitment) allows education providers and employers to take action to tackle disadvantages if they reasonably think that people who share a protected characteristic:

  1. experience a disadvantage connected to that characteristic; or   
  2. have needs that are different from the needs of persons who do not share that characteristic; or   
  3. have disproportionately low participation in an activity compared to others who do not share that protected characteristic.   

YCEDE partners, both as employers and as education providers, choose to use positive action to take proportionate means to achieve the aims stated in the Equality Act 2010: 

  1. enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to overcome or minimise that disadvantage; 
  2. meeting those needs; or 
  3. enabling or encouraging persons who share the protected characteristic to participate in that activity. 

Links to resources

These links are being provided for informational purposes