Equality
Our Vision
Promoting equitable treatment, championing diversity and developing an inclusive LSE
...everyone can enjoy equal opportunities and a positive environment, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity or background
"Working towards equity, diversity and inclusion is the responsibility of all staff and students in the Department of Statistics. We aim to be a collaborative and supportive community, but we must rise to the challenge of ensuring that we provide a welcoming, safe and productive learning and working environment for all.
As such, we are very keen to make sure that everyone can enjoy equal opportunities and a positive environment, irrespective of their gender, ethnicity or background, as part of our departmental culture and working practices."
Professor Milan Vojnovic, Head of Department.
Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at LSE
LSE is committed to building a diverse, equitable and truly inclusive university. LSE believes that diversity is critical to maintaining excellence in all of our endeavours. We seek to enable all members of the School community to achieve their full potential in an environment characterised by equality of respect and opportunity.
The School’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion is one of its six strategic priorities, as highlighted in the LSE Strategy 2020, and ‘equality of respect and opportunity’ is one of the core principles set out in the School’s Ethics Code. The EDI Office acts to promote and further LSE’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion for all members of the School community.
The AdvanceHE Athena SWAN is a national charter mark that recognises the advancement of gender equality in higher education: representation, progression and success for all. It was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employed in higher education and research.
In May 2015 the charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in the arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. The charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.
Examples of our commitment to promoting equitable treatment, championing diversity and developing an inclusive LSE include:
LSE works with AccessAble and Business Disability Forum (BDF) to maximise independence and choice for disabled people, to develop online access guides to all the School’s buildings and route maps around campus. You can find out much more information here.
We strive wherever possible to ensure a diversity of voices, representation and narratives in our Departmental external engagement work. This includes, among others, proactive efforts being taken across the speakers at our public lectures and alumni networking events, authors of our ‘The Measure of it’ blog, the ‘alumni spotlight’ series on our social media channels, and content in our external newsletter. In 2026 we organised our first ‘Women in data’ event, delivered as part of our MSc Actuarial Science programme’s ‘Statistics Insight’ visiting speaker series. We will be expanding this event over the coming years.
As part of our commitment to EDI, the Department of Statistics is a member of the LMS good practice scheme. Details of this scheme can be found here -https://www.lms.ac.uk/women/good-practice-scheme.
Athena SWAN is a national charter mark – run by AdvanceHE which recognises the advancement of gender equality in higher education: representation, progression and success for all. It is very exciting that LSE has achieved Bronze award from charter Athena SWAN, in recognition of our commitment to gender equality. You can read more about this accomplishment via this news article.
We are also very proud to announce that our application for an Athena SWAN bronze award was successful! A bronze award recognises our commitment to advancing women’s careers, and promotion of equality and inclusivity more generally.
LSE and the Department of Statistics are delighted to announce the Statistics UK BAME Studentship. We continue to find new and better ways to ensure that students from all backgrounds can benefit from our research and education environment. Additionally, we hope to learn from the rich and varied experiences of our diverse cohort, as we believe that diversity is critical to maintaining excellence in all our endeavours. Find our more about this studentship.
We have many initiatives in the Department of Statistics that make us an inclusive and friendly place to work. We hold popular coffee and cake in-person meet ups each week with the Department providing food and refreshments. We also have regular celebrations for staff achievements (always with cake!) to help create a sense of community in the Department and we make sure social events take place in core hours. Each year we arrange an all-staff Christmas dinner and summer lunch in a local restaurant.
Another well received initiative is our 'buddies’ scheme for all new staff. Buddies differ from mentors in that they offer general support to new colleagues rather than academic mentoring. Our buddies act as a point of contact for the less formal aspects of starting in a new job such as sharing good places to go for lunch, the best spots on campus to grab a seat in the sun, or orienting new starters with the kitchen etc.
Dr Gelly Mitrodima organises various training sessions for new faculty members and Graduate Teaching Assistants including academic mentoring, marking and teaching, etc. There are also Teams channels available for different staff groups to meet and chat which is organised at School level.
We organise a varied programme of on-campus research seminars that our staff can attend each term. Many of these feature visiting speakers, and collectively they are an important forum for knowledge exchange and the discovery of new research and methodologies.
We have an email charter which reminds all staff to be mindful about emailing out of hours and understand the impact doing so can have on recipients, particularly PhD students and more junior members of staff.
The WiS+ group holds informal monthly meetings when all women staff and PhD students in the Department can get together. The group also aims to raise the profile of women in Statistics and Data Science through public events.