SDG 4: Quality Education 2025 Report

SDG 4 - Quality Education

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

The University is recognised nationally for teaching excellence, with Gold ratings in the UK Government’s Teaching Excellence Framework and an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating for its apprenticeship provision. We champion inclusive and lifelong learning through public access to library resources, community archives, free public lectures, and a wide range of outreach, CPD, and vocational training programmes. Our research, supports global educational equity and addresses educational and social challenges.

Learning for students

Lifelong Learning Access Policy

The University has an Equality Diversity and Inclusivity Policy (reviewed in March 2024) relevant to lifelong learning activity. This policy applies to all students and staff of the University and to all activities associated with the University (whether or not on University property), thereby covering all the activities described here including outreach off campus. At point 5, it indicates the commitment to ‘promote cross-cultural contact between different communities at all levels, foster understanding and respect, and seek to break down barriers’; and at point 3 confirms that the University ‘deplores all forms of unlawful or unfair discrimination and seeks to provide an environment free from discrimination against students, staff and others on the grounds of gender, race, sexual orientation, religion/belief, disability or any other protected characteristic’.

As a result of this activity, the proportion of first-generation students at the University continues to be very high, with 2,272 students who began a degree in 2023/24 not having a parent who had experience of higher education (64% of those providing evidence).

Programmed public lifelong-learning events

The School of Applied Sciences at the University delivers a long-standing free public lecture series, attracting large audiences and making topical science subjects accessible to the public; subjects range widely from wildlife crime to proteins.

The Harold Wilson Lectures were established in 2004 and assembled in collaboration with the Diocese of Wakefield/Huddersfield. With speakers including Tony Benn, Rowan Williams, Ann Widdecombe, and Alan Johnso, these free public lectures cover issues of faith and politics. In 2019, the lecture was delivered by the Bishop of Leeds, and, resuming after Covid in 2022, by Sir John Major. In 2023, the lecturer was Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, now Paymaster General and Cabinet Office Minister in the UK Government.​

The University has inaugurated major cultural events, notably The Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, founded 1978, and The Huddersfield Literature Festival, founded 2006. The Contemporary Music Festival continues to be based at the University and, taking place each November, is the UK’s largest international festival of new and experimental music. Huddersfield Literature Festival, held each May, boasts a significant programme which includes free educational events on campus.​

Our research

The University’s research groups and centres contribute to the goal of quality education.

Colleagues from the Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society (HudCRES) conduct research focused on addressing educational and social challenges. The Centre’s members, who are internationally renowned academics, are committed to undertaking research which makes a real difference to people's lives through engagement with stakeholders at all stages - from design to dissemination.

Researchers on one such project considered how social justice leadership can improve educational opportunities for the indigenous people of Peninsular Malaysia.