The Race Institute is part of Leeds Trinity’s overall ambition to become a leading anti-racist university.

We will pave the way for institutions on a national scale by bringing together organisations from the private, public and voluntary sectors.

Our principles

  • We take an accessible, agile, swift learning and immediate dissemination approach to contemporary anti-racists topics of interest to the public, private and voluntary sectors
  • Our practices are informed by the principles of public and community engagement in (action) research and accountability
  • We take a collaborative approach to our work, ensuring that is of mutual benefit and based on reciprocity

 

Directors

Professor Nadira Mirza

Director

Nadira Mirza is Professor of Lifelong Learning and Social Mobility and the Director of the Race Institute at Leeds Trinity University (LTU). She is also the Deputy Chair of Airedale Hospitals Foundation Trust. She was formerly the Dean of the School of Lifelong Education and Development and the Director of Student Experience and Success at the University of Bradford, where she was instrumental in developing widening participation and access programmes in higher education for first generation scholars and mature learners. Nadira has been a member of several national and international boards charged with transforming health and education outcomes, these include the Office for Students’, Widening Participation Strategy Committee, the Prime Minister’s Social Mobility Advisory Reference Group, and the NHSI/E Seacole Group. Nadira has worked with Born in Bradford since the study was first initiated, co-chairing the family advocacy group. She is also a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has published in the field of lifelong learning, race, equity, and inclusion.

Nadira Mirza, Director of the Race Institute.

Dr Shames Maskeen

Associate Director

Dr Shames Maskeen is the Associate Director of The Race Institute and Lecturer in Developmental Psychology at Leeds Trinity University. The Race Institute aims to improve the experiences of racialised minorities in the public, private and voluntary sectors through research, CPD and knowledge exchange. The Race Institute emerged from the need to keep anti-racism on the national agenda to enable sustained transformational change.

Shames is a member of the Centre for Applied Education Research steering group, Co-Chairs the Black, Asian and Minoritised Ethnicities student network at Go Higher West Yorkshire and is an Associate for Race Equality at Advance HE. His research focusses on solving racial inequities and the intersection of culture, religion, and gender experienced by racialised minorities in Higher Education and beyond.

In his previous role as Institutional Lead for the Race Equality Charter, he was the driving force in Leeds Trinity University becoming the first University in Yorkshire to achieve the Bronze award. He is passionate about anti-racism leadership and more importantly in taking action to make a real difference and equitable world for young people.

Shames Maskeen, Associate Director of The Race Institute.