#CombatMisconduct: a toolkit for vice-chancellors

This can be achieved by:

• Publicly committing to prioritise this work
• Ensuring that ownership, scrutiny and accountability for progress in this area are visibly held by the vice-chancellor and executive team.
• Building the business case to explain the benefits of taking active steps to address harassment, and the risk and cost of inaction.
• Committing to provide resources to drive organisational change

Shaping what is expected, accepted and applauded in the institution by:

• Highlighting the importance and value the university places on the safety and wellbeing of staff and students in missions, value statements, and institutional strategies and policies.
• Modelling a culture of respect, equality and fairness.
• Setting expectations of students and staff behaviour, and challenging behaviour that does not uphold the organisation’s values
• Being proactive and clear in communicating the processes for students and staff to incidents and seek support.
• Communicating actions taken to eradicate harassment to the broader university community

Institutions can do this by:

• Embedding the responsibility to eliminate harassment into the university’s culture, knowledge and practice.
• Ensuring that the institution has robust policies in place that clearly address harassment, sexual misconduct and hate incidents and offer immediate protection, support and guidance for those affected.
• Embedding policies into institutional governance and reporting structures, to support sustainability and consistency by ensuring the agenda is addressed in a cross-cutting way across the university

Addressing harassment requires all members of the university community to play their part. Vice-chancellors and principals can encourage this by:

• Working with the student body, including the students’ union, to raise awareness and actively participate in creating culture change across the whole university.
• Empowering students and staff to speak out and to take part in training to tackle unacceptable behaviours.

Ensure governing bodies have permanent oversight for addressing the agenda and monitoring institutional progress. This can be achieved by:

• Providing governing bodies with information and evidence on the university’s commitment to tackling harassment.
• Reporting on trends and types of cases, and the impact of policies on the student/staff experience.

Invest in learning and professional development on harassment, sexual misconduct and all forms of hate for the vice-chancellor and senior team.

• Learning from people with lived experience within and beyond the senior team, including those that experience multiple and overlapping forms of harassment.
• Building partnerships with specialist sexual violence, domestic abuse and hate crime agencies.
• Considering how a leader may bring their own biases to areas such as strategy, implementation and recruitment

Gather data and evidence on the impact of harassment and hate as a basis for action, by:

• Drawing on the broader national and local evidence base on gender-based violence and other forms of hate to guide the institutional response, even if data specific to the particular institution is difficult to collect.
• Working closely with students and staff who have experienced harassment to gather evidence, including those with protected characteristics. 
• Using this evidence to help prioritise decision-making and evidence-based policy and practice.
• Publishing evidence about the institution’s progress in reducing the impact of harassment and hate to inform the wider university community.

Create an environment where all employees can speak up, be heard, and feel welcome, by: 

• Actively recruiting and embracing the input of staff whose backgrounds or expertise differ from their own.
• Fostering collaboration amongst a diverse staff team by asking questions of all members of the team, facilitating constructive debate, giving actionable feedback, and acting upon the advice of staff from a diverse range of backgrounds.

Recognise the mental health impact of sexual misconduct, harassment and all forms of hate upon those who are directly impacted, as well as staff and students working to support victims and improve institutional responses, by:

• Recognising the impact on the health of academic, professional services and other support staff and students’ union officers who are most likely to receive reports and disclosures
• Investing in support and education to build an understanding of trauma among staff and university counselling services, so that disclosures are responded to safely and effectively.