The EDI Committee reports to ECA’s senior leadership team through the Planning and Resources Committee and to the CAHSS EDI Committee.

The EDI committee is comprised of representatives drawn from all areas of ECA:

• Academic Subject Areas (Art, ESALA, Design, History of Art and the Reid School of Music)
• Director of Faculty
• Director of Students
• Education Committee
• Professional Services
• Student Administration and Support Services
• Students (UG, PGT, PGR)
• Talbot Rice Gallery
• Research, Knowledge Exchange and Impact office / committee
• Working groups (e.g. Decolonising the Curriculum, Athena Swan, Widening Participation, Disability)

The ECA Director of EDI is Dr W. Victoria Lee (w.victoria.lee@ed.ac.uk).

The EDI Committee is committed to equality - equal opportunity and the same levels of support for all – and we also champion equity and the provision of varying levels of support depending upon need in order to achieve greater fairness of outcomes. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion recognises that the practice of inclusion is necessary to put the concept of diversity into action in a meaningful way.

The ECA EDI committee has evolved out of work focussed on gender equality that led to ECA gaining an Athena Swan Bronze Award in May 2017. We are now, however, committed to a wider remit of equality, diversity and inclusion.

The ECA Committee feeds into and reports to the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS) EDI Committee, which in turn reports to the central University EDI Committee Within ECA, the EDI Committee also has two working groups: the Athena Swan Working Group and the Decolonising the Curriculum and Anti-Racism Working Group.

The EDI Committee will:

• Promote a culture of dignity and respect.
• Inform and support the implementation of the College vision on equality, diversity and inclusion and its related policies.
• Work to stimulate and support staff and students to build good practice and innovation in all areas of equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the institution.
• Promote teaching and research by staff and students on issues relating to equality, diversity and inclusion.
• Identify, discuss, and advise on ECA policy with regard to ensuring equalities processes and considerations are embedded at all levels including the highest strategic planning and decision-making levels.
• Oversee the working groups and support them to achieve their actions.
• Produce and publish an annual action plan on the ECA EDI webpages.

The Decolonising the Curriculum (DtC) Working Group will:

• Promote and support an anti-racist culture at ECA and work to decolonise the curriculum.
• Work partnership with Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic students and staff to develop and take forward its action plan.
• Be guided by the lived experiences of those who are impacted by racism but acknowledge that the responsibility for action lies with the institution.
• Draw up an action plan which will be published on the EDI section of the handbook.
• Feed into and draw on the Race Equality and Anti-racism sub-group of the University Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee.

View the Decolonising the Curriculum Working Group's statement >

Please contact Dr Penny Travlou or Fionnuala Doran for further information regarding the Decolonising the Curriculum Working Group.

• Dr Penny Travlou >
• Fionnuala Doran >

Widening Participation (WP) aims to address these educational inequalities and patterns of under-representation in Higher Education (HE) and to provide support to overcome the barriers which can affect a person’s aspirations and trajectory in life. Widening Participation (WP) refers to people facing specific disadvantages and barriers and so sits within a wider aspiration to enhance inclusion.

• See who Widening Participation applies to

ECA works with the University of Edinburgh Widening Participation team to support students while they are at school or in further education, during the application process and while they are a student with us, through a range of schemes. ECA works particularly closely with the ACES team (Access to Creative Education in Scotland) which is located at ECA and provides support to eligible students from S4 to S6 who attend a state school in the south east of Scotland and who are interested in studying a visual creative subject such as art, design or architecture at university.

To find out more about Widening Participation have a look at the Widening Participation at Edinburgh page of the University website and also the widening access webpage for undergraduate applicants.

• Widening Participation at Edinburgh
• Widening Access for Undergraduate Applicants