Equity in Leadership
Supporting the career development of global majority colleagues into senior leadership
The White Rose Equity in Leadership Programme is a pioneering cross-institutional initiative aimed at fostering diversity in higher education leadership. It offers targeted leadership development for staff from global majority backgrounds, including those in academia and professional services who identify as Black, Asian, or other Minority Ethnicities. The programme adopts an equity-based approach to accelerate career progression for global majority talent, with the ultimate goal of diversifying leadership within higher education.
Diversity fosters creativity, enhances critical thinking, and ultimately leads to more effective outcomes. Inclusive leadership that embraces and values this diversity is essential for harnessing the full potential of our workforce and driving positive change beyond the individual.
Championing our core values of inclusivity, integrity, and collaboration, the universities of Leeds, Sheffield, and York have come together through the White Rose Consortium to tackle some of these challenges through our flagship Equity in Leadership programme.
"The coaching sessions were transformative. They helped me find my voice and realise that the challenges I’ve faced are shared by many"
Cohort Two participant
35%
of delegates experienced a direct promotion, job title change, or major leadership advancement during or after the programme
82%
of participants rated their experience
of the programme as excellent
91%
of delegates rated the programme as
exceptional for supporting their learning
Why participate?
The Equity in Leadership programme is designed for individuals aspiring to senior leadership roles within the next 12-18 months. This programme provides a unique opportunity to enhance leadership skills, build valuable support networks, and contribute to a cultural shift towards more inclusive and equitable leadership in higher education.
The programme covers:
- Empowerment and skill development: Gain tools and strategies to navigate and dismantle systemic barriers, enhancing your leadership impact. Benefit from practical toolkits on communication, influence, and personal development.
- Diverse and inclusive leadership: Embrace and value diversity to foster creativity, critical thinking, and effective outcomes. Share your unique experiences and perspectives, hear from successful case studies to enrich collective learning and drive positive change.
- Comprehensive support and networking: Access dynamic facilitators, engaging sessions, peer led masterclasses, networking opportunities with senior leaders.
Programme structure
How to apply
To be eligible for the Equity in Leadership programme, you need to be a grade 8 or above if you're in Sheffield or Leeds and a grade 7 or above if you're in York.
Applications are now closed for our next cohort. Sign up to our newsletter to hear more about future programmes.
Why this programme exists
There is a glaring lack of ethnic diversity in senior leadership roles across the UK Higher Education sector.
Statistical data from Advance HE (2024) reveals that while global majority academics comprise 19.1% of the overall academic workforce, they occupy only 8.9% of academic senior management roles, and 10.9% of Professorial roles. The representation remains similarly low within senior leadership across professional and support services.
Structural barriers and implicit biases prevalent in UK institutions of Higher Education translate into experiences of exclusion, marginalisation, or being overlooked for professional development opportunities.
This, combined with institutional culture where everyday microincivilities may remain unchallenged or unaddressed, further exacerbates these challenges. Repercussions of these racialised structures and experiences are significant, as reflected in troubling national sector statistics such as a sector-wide mean ethnicity pay gap hovering around 5.8%–8.0%.
The situation is even more pronounced across institutions in the Russell Group, where the average mean ethnicity pay gap rises to 9.0% (and up to 15.9% for Russell Group institutions in London and the South East).
In addition, experiences of people from different global majority backgrounds can vary significantly, particularly when considered with intersecting marginalised identities such as gender, disability, and religion.
References
Advance HE. (2024). Equality in higher education: Staff statistical report 2024. Advance HE. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/equality-higher-education-statistical-reports-2024
Arday, J., Branchu, C., & Boliver, V. (2022). What makes a professor? Race, inequality and the professoriate in UK higher education. British Educational Research Journal, 48(6), 1087–1108. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3816
Bhopal, K. (2022). Academics of colour in elite universities in the UK and the USA: The ‘unspoken system of exclusion’. Studies in Higher Education, 47(11), 2127–2137. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2021.2020746
Queen Mary University of London. (2025). Pay Gap Report 2025 (including Russell Group benchmark data). https://www.qmul.ac.uk/human-resources/media/hr/edi/Queen-Mary-University-of-London-Pay-Gap-Report-2025.pdf
Rock, D., & Grant, H. (2016). Why diverse teams are smarter. Harvard Business Review, 94(11), 2–5. https://hbr.org/2016/11/why-diverse-teams-are-smarter
Universities and Colleges Employers Association (UCEA). (2023). Intersectional Pay Gaps in Higher Education 2022–23. UCEA. https://www.ucea.ac.uk/
A note on terminology
The White Rose University Consortium recognises the importance of racial and ethnic terminology and understand that individuals use different terms to identifyand represent themselves. In keeping with the commitment to co-creation for this programme, the Equity in Leadership Programme team asked all participants to vote on the term that they felt best represented them. The term global majoritiy received the most votes, as it provides a more positive perspective compared to the othering narrative of "minority groups."
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