The International Equity Benchmarking Project commenced in 2002 involving selected universities from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. More recently the Project has expanded to also include representation from the UK.

The aim of the Project is to address equity and diversity issues of common interest and concern to benchmarking partners, with a focus on those matters, in which it has proven difficult to make significant progress.

Partners agreed that the Project would utilise an Action Learning model in order to improve practice. Accordingly, the Project has gone beyond mere statistical comparison, to sharing details of strategies that have been successful [and those that have not] with a view to teasing out factors leading to success.

Outcomes from the project have included improved institutional collection and analysis of statistical data in both staff and student equity areas and implementation of recontextualised initiatives. Most importantly the Project has provided a forum for frank and open dialogue between partners that brought greater insight to their own work.

U21 Members:

The University of Queensland – Australia
The University of Melbourne – Australia
The University of Auckland – New Zealand
The University of British Columbia – Canada
The University of Nottingham – United Kingdom

Additional partners:

The University of Western Australia
(member of Australia’s Group of 8: Go8)
Queensland University of Technology
(member of the Australian Technology Universities Network: ATN)

International Equity Benchmarking Project Convenor: Dr Ann Stewart, The University of Queensland