Who Are You?

Why we ask about your age, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or whether you have a disability

Without knowing, for example, if you have a disability, we can't make sure you are given the right support.
By knowing that a School has a larger than average number of mature students, we can think about how best to deliver the curriculum.
If certain groups appear to be leaving before the end of their courses, we can try to find out why, and if they need particular help.

It can seem intrusive when you are asked by the University or the City Council to provide information about your identity.
However, you will not be identified if, for example, you tell us your sexual orientation. It is the statistics that we are using to understand our student population.
If we know who's out there as a population, we can plan better, from the choices of catering outlets on campus to the Council's provision of community facilities.

We see diversity as our strength at the University and we take this seriously.
By telling us your diversity information when you apply, we can monitor if a particular group of applicants have a lower success rate and explore whether unconscious bias exists in the process.
We can direct resources for support if we identify attainment gaps from certain groups of students graduating with a lower proportion of 1st class honour or 2:1 degrees.

It is right to be careful with your personal information with issues surrounding identity theft.
But when you give information about your age, race, religion, caring responsibilities, gender identity, etc. to the University, you can be sure that it will only be used to make things better by establishing an evidence base for activities, policies and practice.
The University has legal requirements to monitor and publish data as part of the public sector equality duty of the Equality Act 2010. Everyone who processes personal data on behalf of the University must also ensure that they comply with the University's Data Protection Policy. So your information is safe with us.

Well, we undertook a data analysis with UBSport to understand sport participation on campus.
We discovered that students from outside of Europe were 72% less likely to join a sports club. The data gave us some important insights on where to enhance our engagement efforts to promote sport participation.
By improving the declaration rates of diversity information, we can make better decisions to support all of our students. Changes need data after all! Please feel free to contact us of you have any further questions.

Please go to registration.bham.ac.uk and login using your student credentials.
You can provide documents, for example government IDs, to update information such as nationality or sex. This can be done via contacting the Aston Webb Student Hub online or by visiting in person. Private rooms are available if you would like to discuss information further.

If you need the document in an alternative format, please email: studentequality@contacts.bham.ac.uk