REF 2021 EQUALITY TRAINING Professors Simonetta Manfredi Lucy Vickers

REF 2021 EQUALITY TRAINING Session objectives To develop a shared understanding of: The legal context which requires higher education institutions to give ‘due regard’ to equality considerations in all their practices and policies What does it mean to have ‘due regard’ for equality considerations in the context of selection of outputs

Legal Context: Characteristics Age Gender Race/ethnicity Disability Religion or belief Sexual Orientation Pregnancy and maternity Marriage and civil partnership Gender re-assignment

Legal Context: Direct and indirect discrimination Direct discrimination can occur when staff are treated differently because of protected characteristics. e.g. choosing outputs due to protected characteristics - could happen due to unconscious bias Note duty of accommodation for disability – where more favourable treatment is allowed. Exception in cases of positive action

Legal Context: Direct and indirect discrimination Indirect discrimination can occur when all staff are treated the same i.e. subject to the same requirements, but that requirement put a particular group at a disadvantage.

Legal Context: Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) introduced by 2010 Equality Act It requires to pay ‘due regard ‘ to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunities and to encourage persons who share a relevant legally protected characteristic (e.g. gender, ethnicity, disability etc.) to participate in public life.

Legal Context: Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) What does this mean for the University? The Duty must be placed at the core of our policies and practices by giving ‘due regard’ to equality considerations. This will apply to the selection of outputs.

Legal Context: Positive Discrimination Section 158 allows proportionate actions: To minimise disadvantages connected to a protected characteristic To meet the needs of persons with a protected characteristic This could apply to the selection of outputs

Selection of research outputs

Code of practice - 90. Once each member of staff has been returned with one output, additional outputs required to make up the ‘output pool’ will be selected using the following criteria: • inclusion of the highest quality outputs as determined by UoA Internal Review Panels so as to best represent the excellent research undertaken in the UoA; • fair distribution of co-authored outputs; • alignment with the narrative of the UoA Environment Statement so as to best represent the breadth and diversity of research undertaken in the UoA and the diversity of colleagues included in the return;

Code of practice maximum 5 outputs per person; prioritise outputs from existing rather than former staff where all other selection criteria are deemed equal. Outputs from former members of staff will be assessed and allocated in exactly the same way as those from current staff; consideration of the EIAs undertaken on output selection over the course of Autumn 2019-Spring 2020.

Selection of outputs – EDI and judging quality Risks of bias in peer assessment Bounded Rationality: In order to manage the complexity of reality in our decision-making process we use short-cuts (heuristics). This short-cuts direct our brain to look for familiar patterns and base decisions on these (Simon 1982) e.g. being influenced by the reputation of the journals where research has been published Gender based ‘double standards’: ‘stricter for women than for men’ (Foschi, 2004: 51)

Selection of outputs – EDI and judging quality Responsible use of metrics Main Panel C supplementary criteria Sub-panel 16 (Economics and Econometric) will receive citation data, where available, and will make use of the data supplied by the REF team where it is considered appropriate as an additional piece of supplementary evidence to support the initial assessment of outputs, not as a determining factor. Sub-panel 16 will take account of the well known limitations of citations, including equality, diversity and inclusion issues.

Selection of outputs – EDI and judging quality Justification for excluding outputs Reduction of outputs – see code of practice Defining independence – see code of practice

Equality Impact Assessment of UoA Staff Profile Business and Management UoA 17 Profile of staff returned to REF 68% women (women represent 59% of all academic staff in OBBS) 21% BME (BME staff represent 20% of all academic staff in OBBS) 63% EU/International (27% of all academic staff)

Any questions?