This survey is important in helping us understand the experiences of staff and students from all ethnic backgrounds at Queen’s. Your feedback will provide valuable insights into where we have made progress and where we need to improve in embedding racial equity, diversity, and inclusion into every aspect of university life.

We want to hear from all staff and students. Your voice matters, and your experiences—whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between—are essential for driving meaningful change.

The survey results will help us identify specific areas where we need to make improvements to ensure that everyone at Queen’s feels supported and empowered. It will also inform our action plan for Queen's submission to the Race Equality Charter in 2025 – a framework that UK institutions can use to guide their work in this area.

It’s not compulsory to complete this short survey, but we strongly encourage you to take the opportunity to tell us what you think and make your voice heard. It’s only by completing the survey honestly that we can work with you to shape employee and student experience at Queen’s.

All staff and students will receive an email on Monday 4^th November 2024 inviting them to follow a link to complete the Racial Equity at Queen’s Survey. It should take around 5 minutes to complete and is designed to be anonymous. The survey will close on Friday 6^th December 2024.

Staff and students have two different surveys tailored to their respective experiences. However, the surveys are closely aligned. All students will be asked the same set of questions, and all staff will be asked the same set of questions.

The surveys include mandatory questions from Advance HE to support our work on the Race Equality Charter. The results will help inform our action plan to support our commitment to advancing racial equity at Queen's.

Your identity and responses to the survey will remain anonymous. Should any identifying details be inadvertently provided, these responses will be redacted at the earliest opportunity.

There are some demographic questions at the end of the survey. Completion of these is optional (there is a ‘Prefer not to say’ option for all questions); however it will help us to analyse the responses across staff category/level of study, race and ethnicity, sex and gender identity. This will help to identify areas of challenge experienced by specific staff and student groups.

The survey results and data are reported only in aggregate groups, with a minimum number of responses required for reporting, so that even if you are the only person who is of a particular ethnicity, in a particular role, the results and reports will not identify you.

We recognise that our multiple-choice lists are not exhaustive and may not capture exactly how each of us at Queen’s chooses to identify, particularly in relation to ethnicity, sex, and gender identity. Our aim is to be as inclusive as possible whilst respecting anonymity. We are also limited by the formatting capabilities of the survey platform, Jisc, meaning that we are unable to include an opportunity for staff to self-describe in these categories. We apologise for any offense this may cause and appreciate your understanding.

Whilst many surveys will also collect demographic information related to disability status, sexual orientation and others, the specific purpose of this survey is to understand the views and opinions of our staff and students related to racial equity. As such, collecting information on ethnicity and ethnic background is essential – and being able to analyse this through the lens of gender identity/sex provides important intersectional data that will support our work on the Race Equality Charter and Athena Swan Charter.

The survey will take around 5 minutes to complete. We recommend completing the survey in one sitting. If you exit out of the survey without submitting, your progress will be lost and you will have to start again. Don’t forget to submit at the end of the survey!

No, the survey can be completed anywhere and on any PC, tablet or mobile device that has Internet access. It works on all Internet browsers.

If you have any questions, please email REC@qub.ac.uk.