Advance HE and HEPI have launched the 2026 Student Academic Experience Survey (SAES) and the findings largely give the sector reasons to be encouraged.
Looking at the results through an inclusion lens, students report stronger levels of belonging, greater comfort expressing their views, broad exposure to a variety of opinions, and positive views of how institutions promote good relations.
This year, though, a question was added specifically on harassment, with the findings showing that 22 per cent of students report experiencing harassment related to one or more protected characteristics in a university or college environment in the past 12 months.
That finding should focus institutional attention. Harassment affects whether students feel safe, whether they belong, whether they speak, whether they engage, and whether they can benefit fully from their education.
The Equality Act still matters
The data from the specific question on harassment is stark. Almost a quarter of students reported experiencing harassment, but this wasn’t just one group of students – there are worrying patterns across protected characteristics.
The following groups of students were more likely to report experience of harassment by particular protected characteristics – trans students, Black, Asian and minority ethnic students, women, older students, disabled students, Jewish and Muslim students (and those of many other religious groups), and those who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, asexual or use a different term such as pansexual or queer (shown as LGB+ in the table).
There’s a lot to unpack here, but it speaks undeniably to the ongoing value and importance of the Equality Act 2010, the Public Sector Equality Duty, and institutions’ work on inclusion.
Table shows, for example, Black students experiencing harassment by race. Listed in order of size of response.
These findings should prompt action, but not be used to create a hierarchy of concern. They should prompt institutions to ask whether their systems are capable of identifying, preventing, and responding to harassment across all protected characteristics. The same institutional discipline is needed whether the issue relates to race, religion or belief, disability, sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, or age.
Not silos, but a system
A broader lesson from SAES is that harassment can’t be treated as a separate compliance issue, disconnected from belonging, freedom of speech, mental health, educational engagement, or student success and outcomes. Jim did a great job illustrating this broader point across the SAES findings in his write-up last week.
SAES reports that 66 per cent of students agree they have a sense of belonging at their university, but only 20 per cent strongly agree. Belonging may be improving, but it remains uneven and, for some students, fragile.
The freedom of speech findings need to be read in this wider context. Seventy per cent of students agree they feel comfortable expressing their viewpoint even if their peers disagree, 76 per cent agree they hear a wide variety of opinions on campus, and 75 per cent agree their institution promotes good relations between different groups.
These are positive findings, but SAES also shows that students’ comfort in expressing views is shaped by culture. The most common driver of comfort was peers being open-minded, cited by 42 per cent of students who felt comfortable expressing their views, followed by lecturers encouraging discussion and debate, cited by 41 per cent.
The recent OfS student insight work points in a similar direction – students’ willingness to speak is shaped by teaching practice alongside social consequences, fear of causing offence, and fear of academic consequences. This matters for institutions charged with securing free speech for students while carefully balancing protection from harassment – freedom of speech is enabled through teaching practice and through the core drivers of belonging, among them peer culture, confidence, and trust.
Disability data illustrate why these issues must be understood together. Disabled students are less likely to report a sense of belonging – 59 per cent agree they belong, compared with 71 per cent of non-disabled students – and are less likely to feel comfortable expressing views, at 65 per cent compared with 73 per cent, and are more likely to report experiences of harassment.
Disability inclusion can’t be reduced to the processing of individual reasonable adjustments, important though those are. It’s also about safety, belonging, confidence to speak, accessible teaching, assessment design, student voice, digital and physical environments, and trust in institutional processes – in short, equal participation in academic life.
Confidence, rights and practical action
Higher education will continue to be a significant and visible part of how the UK contends with societal conflict, and the practical response is that inclusion work has to develop and modernise. The Equality Act and protected characteristics are highly relevant, but they need to be seen within a broader, clearer framework of rights for all students, applied consistently, impartially, and with attention to context.
That broader framework includes protections for freedom of speech within the law, academic freedom, freedom of religion or belief, and protection from harassment and discrimination – and it enables dignity, access, reasonable adjustments, safety, and effective participation.
A framework of rights for all students doesn’t mean treating every situation as identical. It means applying duties consistently while recognising evidence of differential risk, and protecting lawful expression while being clear that harassment and discrimination are unlawful and undermine belonging and participation. It means avoiding assumptions about which rights matter most before context has been considered, and documenting decisions, communicating them clearly, and supporting affected students.
Inclusion practice in higher education needs to keep developing on this basis. Broad commitments to equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) remain important, but they’re not enough. The current context requires inclusion work that is evidence-led, legally literate, proportionate, and connected to core institutional strategy.
Disability as a test case
Disability inclusion offers a useful test case for joined-up practice. If disabled students report lower belonging, lower comfort expressing views, and higher harassment, the institutional response needs to reach beyond individual adjustments. The Disabled Students Commitment offers one practical route for moving from reactive support towards more active institutional inclusion, and institutions should be thinking more broadly across disability into work on mental health, student support, access, and academic experience.
For contested issues across sex and gender, antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate, race equity, disability, mental health, and community cohesion, institutions need clear decision-making frameworks that enable proportionate and justifiable responses to harassment while securing lawful free speech. Universities should aim for more than balancing competing duties. Too often, free speech and protection from harassment are presented as opposing forces, when in practice both are essential foundations of an inclusive learning environment – challenging to achieve, but a challenge worth meeting.
What institutions need to do
The task is practical – to prevent harassment where possible, identify it when it occurs, respond consistently, support affected students, and respond to their own data.
That requires confident leadership, clear reporting routes, accountable decision-making, inclusive pedagogy, and governance oversight. It also requires institutions to look across protected characteristics rather than treating each issue as separate or exceptional.
At a time when public discourse is increasingly characterised by polarisation, fear, and, at times, violence, universities have an important role in modelling a better way.
That means creating spaces where vigorous debate can take place, while being clear that harassment, intimidation, and discrimination limit students’ ability to participate and succeed.
The message from SAES is that belonging, free speech, and protection from harassment rise or fall together. Institutions now need to act on that evidence.
