People and social sustainability

• Support agile working, people-focused policies, staff development, and staff engagement.
• Lead on the widening access agenda.
• Maintain progressive work practices to support good physical and mental health as part of the Health, Wellbeing and Inclusion strand of our People Strategy.
• Continuing to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion across everything we do in line with our published Equality Outcomes.
• Playing a key role in delivering local, regional, and national sustainability objectives through active participation in external partnerships and campaigns.
• Accredited by the Living Wage Foundation as a Living Wage employer.

All new staff members, both academic and professional services, are required to complete environmental sustainability training within their first month of employment. This introduces key concerns that should be recognised by all staff at the University, helping to determine what actions we can all take to reduce its carbon footprint. The training makes it clear what expected of each member of staff and how they can contribute to maintaining an environmentally friendly workplace.

Staff and students are also encouraged to participate in sustainability activities and events, including Green Week and other engagement opportunities promoted throughout the year.

Sustainability in employment and procurement

As part of our commitment to sustainable development, we recognise our responsibility to support socially progressive outcomes through our employment arrangements and procurement decisions.

Human Resources and Organisation Development (HR&OD) contributes to the University’s sustainability work through its role in supporting progressive employment practice, staff wellbeing, embedding equality, diversity and inclusion, enabling employee voice, and supporting leadership development. This includes maintaining policies and practices that support good physical and mental health, work-life balance, inclusive working environments, and effective support for disabled staff, carers and colleagues with individual workplace needs.

The University is committed to equality, diversity and inclusion in line with our published Equality Outcomes. Through staff engagement, leadership development, employee voice activity, and policy development, we seek to create a working environment where colleagues are treated fairly, supported to thrive, and able to contribute to the University’s sustainability and social responsibility ambitions.

Living Wage and fair employment 

As of 2025. the University is accredited by the Living Wage Foundation as a Living Wage employer. This reflects our commitment to fair pay and responsible employment practice.  

In addition, HR&OD works to support, fair and sustainable employment practice through workforce planning and the proactive use of workforce data. This includes monitoring employment patterns and supporting institutional work to reduce unnecessary reliance on fixed-term or insecure contracts where appropriate.

Partners and just transition

We work closely with regional local authority partners and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Stirlingshire, Clackmannanshire, and Falkirk to support a just transition to a green economy.

Staff and student wellbeing 

At the University, we know that being future-ready means investing in our people’s health and wellbeing, continuing to evolve our innovative approach to progressive working practices, and further building an inclusive environment that responds to each individual’s diverse range of needs and expectations.  

For staff, this commitment is supported through a range of policies, services and development activity designed to promote wellbeing, work-life balance, inclusion and dignity at work. This includes:

• mental health awareness sessions for line managers and staff;
• a dedicated staff wellbeing programme;
• leadership development that helps managers create supportive, inclusive and psychologically safe working environments;
• additional rest days to support health and well-being;
• an Employee Assistance Programme that gives free, confidential advice 24 hours a day, 365 days a year for all employees and immediate family members;
• access to the Peppy app - trusted information and real, human experts for free, personalised, and confidential support in the areas of Menopause and Men’s Health;
• a staff-run Menopause Network that provides peer-to-peer support, guidance and a space for colleagues to share experience, reduce stigma and promote more inclusive workplace practice. 

HR&OD also supports wellbeing through occupational health advice, reasonable adjustments, flexible working arrangements, family-friendly policies, dignity and respect at work policies, and staff voice activity. These approaches help ensure that staff are supported not only as individuals, but through organisational practices that promote fairness, inclusion and sustainable working lives.

Find out more about our staff health and wellbeing.

Agile Working Framework

We support progressive working practices that enable staff to work effectively while balancing operational needs, collaboration, wellbeing and work-life balance. Our Agile Working Framework provides a structured approach to considering where, when and how work is undertaken, ensuring that arrangements remain appropriate to the needs of the role, the team and the wider University.

While the Framework is not designed primarily as a sustainability measure, agile working has contributed indirectly to the University’s environmental ambitions, including through reduced commuting and more efficient use of campus space. In this way, our approach to agile working supports both positive staff experience and the wider institutional commitment to more sustainable ways of working.

This work complements wider University activity to support student wellbeing and contributes to our broader commitment to social sustainability, fair work, equality, diversity and inclusion.

Free period products and condoms

As part of the Scottish Government funded initiative, the University supports and provides access to free-period products which are available through either an order and collect service or through the provision of products at facilities across campus. Condoms are also accessible and free to students to improve sexual and reproductive health via the Students Union, Campus Pharmacy and at the on-site NHS run Airthrey Park Medical Centre.

The Airthrey Park Medical Centre provides free access to sexual health and lifestyle clinics for students.

Wellbeing events

The University recognises that wellbeing is an important part of social sustainability. We support staff and student wellbeing through a programme of awareness raising, practical support and opportunities to connect.

• Wellbeing Week
• Menopause Awareness Month
• Stress Awareness Week
• Mental Health Awareness Week
• Men’s Health Awareness Month 

These activities are designed to raise awareness, encourage participation, reduce stigma, and signpost staff and students to relevant sources of support.

For staff, HR&OD works with occupational health and wellbeing partners to provide accessible wellbeing support, including webinars, free health checks, flu vaccination clinics, occupational health advice, neurodiversity awareness sessions and signposting to specialist services. This is complemented by the Employee Assistance Programme, which provides free and confidential advice 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and Peppy, which offers personalised and confidential support from trusted experts.

The University of Stirling’s Be Connected programme offers a range of free activities that promote physical, mental and social wellbeing. Together, these initiatives support a healthy, inclusive and connected University community, and complement the University’s wider commitments to fair work, equality, diversity and inclusion, and sustainable working lives.

Women in careers

The University has a strong and recognised commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion, including support for women’s career development and progression. We were instrumental in the development of the influential Aurora programme, which has subsequently been rolled out across the UK to support women’s leadership development in higher education. In 2024 The University of Stirling was awarded a prestigious Athena Swan Charter award for its commitment to advancing gender equality - joining just four other higher education institutions in Scotland and 38 in the UK to hold a Silver institutional award.

This commitment is reflected in measurable progress on gender equality. The University’s median gender pay gap has narrowed from 18.61% in 2020 to 10.89% in 2024, while the mean gender pay gap has also reduced over the same period. We recognise that there is more to do, and are committed to continuing to narrow this gap.

In 2025, the University’s HR&OD team won a national Universities Human Resources award for its work to transform academic promotions. The award recognised Stirling’s data-driven, person-centred approach to academic progression, inclusion and leadership. The work has contributed to measurable progress, including increased promotion success rates, more women applying for and achieving promotion, an increase in female academic leaders, and a narrowing of the gender pay gap.

This work provides a strong example of how progressive employment practice can support fairness, inclusion, career development and institutional culture.

We have been sector-leading for many years in the promotion of women’s careers. We were instrumental in the development of the influential Aurora programme which has subsequently been rolled out across the UK to support women’s career development. We also hold an Athena Swan Silver Award award which attests to the importance we attach to equality, diversity, and inclusion.

Staff equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) disclosure

Staff voice activity has also strengthened the University’s equality, diversity and inclusion evidence base. During 2025/26, targeted campaigns encouraged staff to review and update the personal EDI information held within their staff profile. This work was designed to improve the quality and reliability of workforce EDI data, supporting more evidence-led decision-making and enabling a more targeted, proportionate and impact-focused approach to future EDI activity. This aligns with the University’s People Strategy 2024-2030 (PDF link, 15.4 MB) and wider statutory reporting duties.

Progress has been monitored and reported through relevant governance and reporting routes since 2023. A snapshot of equality monitoring data taken in May 2026 shows continued improvement in disclosure rates across a number of key characteristics.

• Disability: 10.8% of staff now identify as having a disability, compared with 8% in 2023/24 and 5% when the Be Heard campaign launched in September 2023.
• Sexual orientation: disclosure has increased to 84.2%, compared with 73% at campaign launch and 82% at the May 2025 Equality Outcomes reporting snapshot.
• Ethnicity: disclosure has increased to 93.7%, compared with 91.6% at the May 2025 snapshot.
• Transgender status: disclosure has increased to 50%, compared with 37% at the May 2025 snapshot.

While disclosure rates are only one indicator, these improvements suggest growing engagement with the University’s staff voice and EDI activity, and provide a stronger basis for understanding staff experience, identifying potential inequalities and targeting action where it will have most impact.

Care students

We are committed to supporting care students and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds.

In line with the Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) Commission On Widening Access (CoWA) we measure and track the recruitment and retention of students from 20% of the most deprived areas in Scotland, in line with supporting the SFCs sector wide of 20% of entrants to come from deprived areas.

We also have an institutional target to narrow the completion degree classification attainment gap. Between 2018/19 and 2023/24 this reduced from 17.8% to 6.9%.

Refugees

We provide funded studentships and a research fellowship for refugees through the CARA scheme.

Our Sanctuary scholarships are awarded to postgraduate, access and undergraduate students who are in the UK and have applied for asylum or are staying in the UK as refugees or on humanitarian grounds.