University of Bradford to host seminar to drive levelling up agenda

Careers and professions being open to people of all backgrounds through transparent, accessible and open recruitment practices will be the latest focus at a seminar series launching a new architecture for levelling up Britain.

Earlier this year a set of 14 Levelling Up Goals were launched by the Social Mobility Pledge, a coalition of businesses and universities campaigning for greater social mobility, to galvanise efforts to reduce inequality.

The goals are being launched with a seminar series where each individual session focuses on a different one of the 14 goals. The seminars are hosted by one of the Social Mobility Pledge partners with a panel discussion featuring businesses and MPs.

Removing barriers

Open recruitment is the latest of the goals to be discussed at a virtual seminar hosted by the University of Bradford. The session will be chaired by broadcaster Iain Dale with panellists including Professor Shirley Congdon, University of Bradford Vice Chancellor, Alex Flemming, Region President of Northern Europe for Adecco Group, Robbie Moore MP, Mike Hawes from Morrisons plc, and Aleem Bashir, University of Bradford Graduate and Technical Support Specialist at Prometheus.

The University of Bradford topped the new English Social Mobility Index by the Higher Education Policy Institute based on its impact on improving students’ social mobility. This comes on the back of the University being named ‘University of the Year for Social Inclusion 2019/20 by The Times and Sunday Times.

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Bradford, Professor Shirley Congdon, said: “Delivering social mobility is a core part of our University strategy. We pride ourself on our enduring focus on social inclusion and enabling students from socially and economically diverse backgrounds to maximise their talents while achieving positive academic and graduate employment outcomes. We will continue to focus on removing barriers so that anyone regardless of background, has an equal opportunity to access not only higher education, but any career or profession they wish.

“Ultimately this benefits students but it has a wider impact in terms of levelling up, benefiting local businesses and the regional economy.”

Levelling up

The Social Mobility Pledge co-founder the Rt Hon Justine Greening, former Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, said: “The coronavirus pandemic has widened and deepened existing inequalities and disproportionately impacted certain communities in the UK. It has made addressing social mobility and inequality of opportunity even more important. 

“Ensuring that all careers and professions are open to anyone, whatever their background, is an important part of the drive to level up Britain. I’m looking forward to hearing from the University of Bradford, Adecco Group and others on the work they are doing to ensure progress in this area through transparent, accessible and open recruitment practices.

“The Levelling Up Goals are designed to provide standards against which organisations can measure and track their future progress in driving real, targeted change on the ground. The 14 goals transcend political divides and can be supported by all political parties.’’

Join the event live on Tuesday 20 April at noon. For more details on the series of seminars on the 14 Levelling Up Goals visit: www.levellingupgoals.org