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EDI Competition: I Belong Here & My Voice Matters

The School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment (ADBE) initiative ‘EDI Matters’, is an annual student competition part of the Equality, Diversion, and Inclusion (EDI) department. This event features outstanding presentations from students, who share their research, personal experience and innovative ideas for a more equitable, diverse and inclusive future.

    NTU academic introducing the event in front of an audience

    The first competition in 2022/23 was aimed at ‘Race Equality and The Future of the Industry’, and resulted in highly innovative ideas for how educators and employers can improve intersectional equity and inclusivity in industries that have a diversity crisis (Design Council 2021).

    ADBE student presenting her work

    Participating students have since become EDI Ambassadors & worked in partnership with staff to drive improvements to the student experience, and also attracted support through a Seedcorn-funded project. This initiative was shared at Advance HE’s Co-creators Symposium in 2023 and have also been adapted by the Law School at the Open University.

    Now in its second year, the Competition was delivered under the theme: ‘I Belong Here and My Voice Matters’. This innovative approach was aimed at allowing students to self-identify, rather than focusing on specific protected characteristics, and to submit entries in varied formats, their ideas will be explored towards increasing diversity in the curriculum and co-creating student experience (Bovill et al, 2014).

    ADBE students listening to the presentation

    This year’s competition was also sponsored by several industry partners including Waldeck, Turner & Townsend, Bowmer & Kirkland, ISG, Arc Partnership, Redwood.rent etc, with loads of prizes including £400 top prize alongside industry mentorship from sponsorship companies.

    This event featured outstanding presentations from students, who shared their research, personal experience and innovative ideas for a more equitable, diverse and inclusive future. This celebratory event featured Posters, Sculptures, Paintings, Short presentations etc. from the finalists of the EDI student competition.

    Event panel introducing themselves

    Prizes were selected and awarded by the judging panel comprising; Clive Foster MBE​, Executive Dean Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at NTU, Professor Richard Bull​, Deputy Dean, School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment with support from our sponsors and partners including Turner & Townsend (Elaine Niven), ISG (Jo Hall), Redwood.rent (Nikian Aghababaie), arcPartnership (Jane Dackiewicz), Waldeck (Becky Hicks), Bowmer + Kirkland (Helen Bedford).

    The event attracted staff and students from across and beyond the School of ADBE and also offered an opportunity for networking & sharing new ideas. Sharing his thoughts about the event, Richard Bull added:

    "Issues like equality, diversity and inclusion are not just abstract themes but vital to our student’s sense of belonging at NTU and our School in particular, given the lack of representation and diversity in the built environment sector. It was inspiring to hear from all our students who spoke passionately about the industry needs to change."

    Many congratulations to our contestants for the well-deserved prizes:

    1st Position - Vivien Machmud (Year 1 Architecture)

    2nd Position - Chloe Brierley (Year 1 Product Design)

    3rd Position - Angel Edema (Year 1 Civil Engineering)

    4th Position - Stacy Banamwana  (Year 3 Product Design)

    It was truly a fantastic experience witnessing such excellent work. Thank you very much to Dr Nikoo Nikkar Esfahani, Dr Anthony Ogbuokiri (Project and Race & Equality Lead), and the rest of the ADBE team for such a wonderful event.

    For more information please visit the EDI Website: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion | Nottingham Trent University.