Global diversity in higher education staffing: Towards openness

The adoption of institutional diversity, equity and inclusion policies and programs in recent decades highlights an ongoing need for structural and cultural change within higher education institutions. It also raises questions around gender, race and disability politics, the decolonisation of diversity and neoliberal management of higher education. How are institutionalised policies enacted and what are the outcomes? Charting the impacts of changes can be achieved through analysis of publicly available statistics. Demographic statistical data provide insights into the outcomes and impacts of diversity policies and practices. However, obtaining and analysing such data in order to understand institutional, national and regional diversity depends on multiple factors. Underpinning institutional diversity data collection and availability are national and international imperatives through policy and program reform, but also institutional reputation and world university rankings. Drivers for data collection include political and social change movements, government imperatives, priorities and funding programs. Gender equality or gender parity is now an expressed target in many countries, often in relation to professional level, disciplines and the percentages of teaching and research in academic faculty positions. More variable across geographic locations are data relating to institutional staff and faculty age, ethnicity, nationality, race, indigeneity and disability. Our project embraces diversity as an indicator of openness in higher education institutions on the path to Open Knowledge Institutions. Analysis of publicly available data relating to diversity in research and staffing (academic/faculty and professional/administrative) in order to understand institutional openness reveals a varied datascape. This article explores and discusses the data presence, gaps and significance in global higher education staff demographic diversity data