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Advancing Gender Equity through Inclusive Leadership
2025-26 Member Benefit
A two-hour interactive online event for higher education leaders, exploring how inclusive leadership can drive practical progress on gender equity.
Available to Advance HE Members only.
Despite sustained institutional commitments to gender equity, structural and cultural barriers continue to limit women’s progression and influence across higher education. Economic, political and social pressures, alongside increasing leadership complexity, mean that translating policy into meaningful, lasting change remains challenging.
Advancing Gender Equity through Inclusive Leadership brings together senior leaders from across the world to explore how inclusive leadership practices can accelerate progress on gender equity – moving beyond intention to measurable impact.
Why attend
Many higher education leaders are committed to advancing gender equity, but day‑to‑day realities can make progress difficult to sustain. Structural barriers, cultural norms and competing priorities often mean that good intentions do not translate into action.
This event focuses on the practical leadership behaviours, decisions and conversations that shape gender equity in departments and teams. It offers a focused opportunity to step back, reflect with peers and identify realistic actions that can be taken within your own context.
What you will gain
By participating, you will:
Gain practical tools and inclusive leadership strategies to support measurable progress on gender equity
Strengthen your ability to embed equity and inclusion into everyday decision‑making, policy and culture
Explore how leadership behaviours and organisational cultures shape gender equity outcomes
Learn ways to break down structural and systemic barriers to women’s leadership
Connect with a global peer network of senior leaders facing similar challenges
Leave with clear, context‑specific actions you can take within your own sphere of influence.
Gender equity in leadership doesn’t advance through good intentions alone. It shifts when leaders are willing to examine their everyday decisions, behaviours, and use of power – even when that feels uncomfortable. While cultural and organisational contexts differ around the world, many of the leadership tensions shaping gender equity are shared. Learning from global experience can help leaders recognise these patterns, while reflecting more honestly on how they show up in their own reality.
Baljit Birring, Senior Consultant, Inclusive Leadership, Advance HE
Who is this for?
This event is designed for mid to senior leaders in higher education who play a role in shaping culture, policy and leadership pathways, including:
Professional services leaders working in HR, organisational development or EDI.
Book your place
Date: 21 May 2026 Time: 08:00–10:00 BST
This two-hour session is practical and participatory, combining short expert inputs with facilitated discussion and peer learning. Leaders will explore how inclusive leadership behaviours influence gender equity outcomes and identify realistic actions they can implement within their own departments and teams.
Drawing on perspectives from across the UK, MENA, Australasia, Ireland, Cyprus and wider Europe, the session will focus on:
Breaking down structural and systemic barriers to women’s leadership
How inclusive leadership fosters belonging, equity and performance
Translating strategic commitments into measurable progress
Practical actions to amplify women’s voices and influence.
Facilitator
Baljit Birring, Senior Consultant, Inclusive Leadership, Advance HE
Speakers
Sarah Morgan
Chief of Staff, Queen Mary University of London
Sarah joined Queen Mary University of London in 2023 as the inaugural chief of staff, and in this role works closely with the President and wider executive team.
Dr Sarah Barnard
Associate Dean, Loughborough University
Dr Sarah Barnard is Reader in Sociology of Work in the Business School at Loughborough University, UK. Sarah has an established research profile in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at work and interdisciplinary research on gendered aspects of careers; and in higher education.
Recent books include: Gender and Higher Education Management in Times of Crisis (2025) and Women doing Leadership in Higher Education (2024).
Dr Zozan Balci
Senior Social Impact Practitioner, University of Technology Sydney
Dr Zozan Balci is an award-winning sociolinguist, author, and social justice advocate at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Liverpool. Her work explores language and identity, and how these shape institutional inclusion, with a particular focus on anti-racism and cultural equity.
She is the author of Erased Voices and Unspoken Heritage (Routledge, 2025) and leads the international Say Our Names initiative, translating research into anti-racism policy and institutional reform
