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Our Values and Ethos

Fair access to academic excellence

We make education, academic life and ideas available without discrimination on the basis of protected characteristics or socio-economic status.

We encourage students from the widest range of backgrounds, especially those who have traditionally been excluded or marginalised, to apply to study at the University of Oxford.

We champion access to transformative educational experiences, supporting our students to study and live in ways that are meaningful to them.

An inclusive community based on respect

We value diversity and difference as necessary elements of a vibrant intellectual culture.

We nurture the wellbeing of all members of our community, aiming to provide a stable, secure, respectful and fair workplace to all our academic and non-academic workers.

We seek to run our college in an environmentally and financially sustainable and ethical way, and our operations and investments are undertaken with due consideration of and respect for good environmental and human rights standards.

A dynamic view of academic discovery

We recognise academic excellence can be achieved at different ages and under different circumstances, and that it can be assessed in many ways.

Drawing on our non-conformist and human rights tradition, we cultivate academic and intellectual autonomy and freedom.

We value and promote expertise as a vehicle for making informed contributions to pressing problems in the world.

“We educate, equip, and empower our students to make positive impacts in the world and to people’s lives.”

Principal, Helen Mountfield, KC