Professor Colin Scott:

If I may, I will comment on the first two questions. The Senator asked how we identify patterns in respect of sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, for example, within institutions. Part of that is the reporting support tools which we have mentioned already, such as ShoutOut, which is across the sector. That provides significant data in identifying patterns and challenges.

The second dimension and innovation is the introduction of environmental investigations. We have known for a significant period that there may be issues in a particular part of an institution that are not resulting in people being willing to come forward with complaints. The trend is towards introducing a power to have an environmental investigation of a particular area of a university, with respect to, for example, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct. This would enable a review to be undertaken and engagement with staff and students in a particular area to learn more about where the cultural challenge is, where the behavioural challenges may be, what their character is and what kind of solutions might be adopted to address those challenges. It is an alternative; it is a supplement to a complaints-based approach. The HEA’s equality, diversity and inclusion, EDI, centre of excellence has recently funded some new work around setting up these environmental assessments. That will supplement a complaints-based approach to understanding and addressing patterns of sexual harassment, sexual misconduct and sexual violence.

On the questions about more diverse classrooms, the sector is very strongly committed to continuing to diversify who comes to learn in higher education. That has strong implications for who is teaching and how they are teaching within the classroom. As Dr. Kenneally has already mentioned, there is a strong commitment in all parts of the sector towards enhancing the support we provide through teaching and learning units and through access-widening participation units to both understand and address the challenges. One approach is implementation of the universal design for learning as a key ethos for the way that we teach and support learning in higher education. To link that to data, it is to have the data on retention and progression that enable us to identify and highlight the success that different types of students have in progressing to higher education and to pick up where there may be challenges that need to be addressed through further developments and support for the teaching and learning modes that are offered within the classrooms.