Queen’s University celebrates Silver Diversity Mark award

Queen’s University Belfast is celebrating having been awarded a Silver Diversity Mark recognising its commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion in the workplace.

The Silver Diversity Mark award highlights the University’s progress in advancing gender, race and disability equality and its ambitious plans in this space.

Speaking about the award, Queen’s vice-chancellor Professor Ian Greer said he was ‘extremely proud’, adding that ‘our 2030 Strategy places significant emphasis on the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion’.

He explained: “We are committed to ensuring that Queen’s University is a welcoming and inclusive place for our staff, students and visitors.

“We are extremely proud of the diversity of our staff, students and community and of the work that continues to be done by them to embed equality, diversity and inclusivity at our University.

“Our 2030 Strategy places significant emphasis on the importance of equality, diversity and inclusion.

“It resonates with our students, our staff and our focus on internationalisation, positive culture change and sustainability.

“This award will also ensure that we continue to hold ourselves to a high standard of achievement in this important area and continue to attract the students and staff from around the world to study, research, work and live in Belfast.”

Queen’s is one of only 10 organisations to achieve the Silver Diversity Mark sharing a platform with others such as Belfast City Council, Danske Bank, FinTru and Liberty IT.

Professor Karen McCloskey, director of Queen’s Gender Initiative, continued: “The Silver Accreditation reflects significant progress since the University was awarded Bronze almost three years ago. This award not only reflects the progress made at Queen’s on gender, race, and disability equality, but also recognises our ambitious plans to do more in these spaces.

“To maintain the Silver Diversity Mark, Queen’s will report annually on the initiatives we are delivering to drive forward further progress and meet agreed targets.”

Diversity Mark is a not-for-profit organisation that focuses on enabling and supporting companies of all sizes across the UK and Ireland in achieving an Accreditation to recognise commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Highlighting the ‘significant progress’ made by the University since being awarded Bronze status three years ago, Conor Curran, head of diversity and inclusion, added: “We are delighted to be one of only 10 employers in Northern Ireland to have achieved Silver Award status now.

“It reflects the significant progress which has been made since we were awarded Bronze almost three years ago, and the important work by carried out by many colleagues on campus, in various faculties, schools and directorates. It also gives us added determination to push on and address many other equality and diversity issues over the next few years.”

Interim head of business, Diversity Mark, Nuala Murphy, concluded: “We are delighted that Queen’s University Belfast have been awarded the Silver Diversity Mark in recognition of their progress and ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusion and we congratulate all the team on this very significant achievement.

“The independent assessment panel noted their submission included many considerable strengths and evidenced an ambition in the organisation to strive for further excellence in diversity and inclusion. We look forward to them continuing their progressive and innovative initiatives moving forward.”

The Diversity Charter Mark accreditation is awarded to organisations following an independent assessment process. There are currently no Northern Ireland organisations or employers with Gold Status.

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