Equality charters

Charter Marks, Awards and Accreditations

As a university we focus some of our work through commitments to various Equality Charters. They all work slightly differently but involve some form of application and are supported by an action plan.

You’ll find below a list of our current and most recent awards and accreditations.

Race Equality Charter

The Race Equality Charter (REC), led by Advance HE, aims to improve the representation, progression, and success of minority ethnic colleagues and students within higher education. The University of Salford joined the charter in September 2018 and recently achieved the Race Equality Charter Bronze Award in February 2025. This achievement acknowledges our understanding of race equity issues and our commitment to a 5-year action plan to address these inequities.

Colleagues and students contributed their experiences through surveys, roundtables, and focus groups. This data, combined with a detailed analysis of quantitative data from the past three years, highlighted key areas requiring change. As a result, we identified six REC priorities to focus our efforts on advancing race equity over the next five years.

Priority 1: To deliver year-on-year improvements to student and colleague experience of inclusive culture at UoS.
Priority 2: To increase the proportion of minoritised ethnic colleagues across all areas and grades, through enhancements to the recruitment process.
Priority 3: To increase the proportion of minoritised ethnic colleagues across all areas and grades, through supporting career progression of existing colleagues.
Priority 4: To narrow the gap between minoritised ethnic students and White undergraduate students in relation to the proportion of 2:1’s and first-class degrees awarded.
Priority 5: To increase representation of undergraduate Black students in the School of Health and Society, through achieving parity for Black students.
Priority 6: To enhance the experiences of international students, through providing specific and culturally appropriate support.

While achieving the bronze award is a significant milestone, it is crucial that we remain proactive. The award provides a platform to implement an ambitious action plan aligned with our Statement of Ambition. We are committed to embedding race equity into all aspects of our institution through a collective approach and look forward to sharing progress updates. You can find more information on our Race Equality Charter Priorities page.

Our REC Priorities

Athena Swan Charter

The University of Salford became the 100th signatory to the Athena SWAN Charter in 2012 making a very public commitment to improving outcomes for women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine. The University reaffirmed its commitment to the revised principles as part of its application for a Bronze Award submitted in November 2015. In 2016 the university successfully achieved a bronze level Athena SWAN Award which acknowledged the steps taken by the university to address gender equity and reflected confidence in our Action Plan for effecting change. We successfully renewed our Institutional Bronze award in April 2022.

Stonewall

Stonewall is Europe’s largest LGBTQ+ charity. Their Diversity Champions programme is the leading employers' programme for ensuring all LGBTQ+ colleagues are accepted without exception in the workplace.

In February 2022 we were delighted to announce that the University received two prestigious Stonewall accolades for our commitment to LGBTQ+ inclusion in the workplace. We were named as one of the Top 100 Employers and we were also one of 132 employers to receive the Gold Award – a brand-new Stonewall accolade for 2022.

Disability Confident

The University of Salford is an accredited 'Disability Confident' employer, a government backed scheme managed by Jobcentre Plus. This scheme promotes and recognises good practice in the recruitment, selection and retention of disabled job seekers. We have made the following commitments:

To interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria for a job vacancy and to consider them on their abilities
To discuss with disabled employees, at any time but at least once a year, what you can both do to make sure they can develop and use their abilities
To make every effort when employees become disabled to make sure they stay in employment
To take action to ensure that all employees develop the appropriate level of disability awareness needed to make these commitments work
To review these commitments every year and assess what has been achieved, plan ways to improve on them and let employees and Jobcentre Plus know about progress and future plans

We operate a guaranteed interview scheme for job applicants who declare they have a disability and meet the essential criteria of the job they are applying for. In addition, we support disabled people in the workplace by providing equipment or making reasonable adjustments.

AccessAble

AccessAble (formerly DisabledGo) is an award-winning disability organisation with the reputation of working with many public sector bodies such as HEIs, FECs, NHS Trusts and Local Authorities. It provides a website which hosts detailed access guides and a wealth of information designed to give people the detail needed to make a confident choice while accessing services and venues in their community. Our profile on the AccessAble website has detailed access guides on a large range of building at our various UK campuses. These guides provide comprehensive information including access information including corridors, doors, access to other floors, toilets, lifts, ramps, stairs and photographs,