Launched in February 2024 and running through to 2034, the Reparative Futures programme seeks to address systemic injustices rooted in historic enslavement while confronting ongoing anti-Black racism within the University and wider society.
Held alongside the World University Network (WUN) Annual General Meeting, which concludes today, the conference brought together speakers and delegates from across all six continents impacted by the histories of chattel slavery and colonialism.
The conference opened with welcoming remarks from Professor Evelyn Welch, the University’s Vice-Chancellor and President, who situated the event within the broader WUN agenda, welcomed Professor Dawn Freshwater as the new Chair of WUN, and thanked Dr Marie-Annick Gournet and the Reparative Futures team for organising the gathering.
Opening the day, Dr Marie-Annick Gournet, Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for Reparative and Civic Futures at the University of Bristol, emphasised the responsibility of higher education institutions to engage meaningfully with their historical legacies.
She said: “It was crucial to use the opportunity of the WUN AGM to highlight the important role that all higher education institutions have to play in the repair of that traumatic history. They were complicit - directly or indirectly, in one way or another, before or after - in reinforcing or maintaining that legacy.”
Peaches Golding OBE, Lord-Lieutenant of Bristol representing His Majesty the King and Pro-Chancellor at the University of Bristol, reinforced the deeply personal dimensions of this history. Reflecting on her own family lineage, which includes both enslaved African ancestors and German enslavers, she spoke of the lasting impact of racial injustice and her family’s legacy of resistance. Golding noted that her father was the second person to refuse to surrender his seat on a segregated bus, shortly before Rosa Parks’ historic act of protest. She urged universities to use their civic influence to confront contemporary inequalities directly.
The tone of the conference shifted from institutional reflection to ancestral grounding through a drum call and prayer led by artist Kofi Ayiih, followed by a presentation from Dr Erica McInnis, who explored the enduring psychological trauma of enslavement through an A to Z framework of emotional and intergenerational effects.
From protest to policy
The opening panel traced the grassroots activism that pushed institutions toward reparative action. Dr Gournet reflected that Bristol’s reparative journey did not begin in boardrooms, but through sustained community pressure and public protest.
Momentum built through campaigns following the contested 2007 abolition commemorations, intensified during the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall movement, and accelerated in 2020 amid Black Lives Matter protests, the toppling of the Edward Colston statue, and renewed student demands to decolonise the curriculum and rename university buildings.
International speakers connected Bristol’s debates to wider global struggles for reparatory justice.
Ambassador Dorbrene O’Marde, Vice-Chair of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, reminded delegates that Caribbean nations have spent decades developing rigorous frameworks for reparative justice, including the CARICOM Ten-Point Plan. Drawing on the work of Sir Arthur Lewis and Sir Hilary Beckles, he argued that poverty across the Caribbean must be understood as a structural consequence of colonial exploitation rather than domestic failure.
Arley Gill, Chair of the Grenada National Reparations Committee, emphasised a principle now central to the Reparative Futures programme: “Nothing about us, without us.”
Gill described psychological healing as a political act, essential to addressing internalised trauma and affirming the dignity of younger generations.
“Putting the house in order”
A central focus of the conference was the question of what meaningful institutional repair should actually look like, particularly in light of the University of Bristol’s landmark 2020 report examining its historical links to slavery.
Professor Olivette Otele, author of the report and now Professor of Legacies and Memory of Slavery at SOAS University of London, chaired the second panel and reflected on the progress made since the report’s publication.
She said: “I am impressed by the work that has been done following my report. Now the biggest part is about the University’s duty to carry it forward and to be held accountable for what has been achieved here. Today is about engaging, healing, talking, and taking stock; but it is also about asking: what now?”
Calling for long-term institutional commitment, Professor Otele stressed the importance of embedding reparative work permanently within university structures: “We need to see things being done at a practical level, starting with putting the house in order. One of the things to begin with is ensuring permanence to this work, securing the positions of the people leading this work so they are here, supported, and well-treated.”
Other panellists echoed these concerns while highlighting the structural limitations and tensions surrounding reparative initiatives.
Professor Tommy J. Curry argued that independent reviews must remain grounded in empirical evidence exposing how Black communities continue to be underserved by historically white institutions. He cautioned that expectations of direct institutional “pay-outs” may not always align with legal or structural realities.
Dr Leona Vaughn, international human rights expert at the University of Liverpool, highlighted stark inequalities within academia, noting that just over 1% of UK professors are Black, only 75 Black women hold professorships nationwide, and Black historians make up approximately 0.4% of the field. She challenged institutions directly: “How can universities ethically research slavery without Black scholars in the room?”
Professor Robert Beckford questioned whether university-led initiatives can genuinely be described as “reparations” if they stop short of financial restitution.
Co-Creation, belonging and structural change
The third panel focused on co-creation and equitable partnerships, featuring contributions from Sado Jirde, Sharon Walker, Rafael Mitchell, Isabella Adeborin, and Leon Tickly.
Reflecting on the importance of international solidarity, Sado Jirde said: “It was genuinely uplifting to hear from international scholars and speakers, to see familiar faces and to make new connections - a reminder that these questions are being wrestled with across contexts and not in isolation.”
The afternoon session on epistemic justice and curriculum transformation opened with a moving performance of Time Will Come by Kim Poole, Founder of the Teaching Artists Institute in Baltimore. Her contribution led into discussions on the role of arts education in structural repair and social transformation.
Professor Suchith Anand, Professor of Practice in Science Policy at the University of Exeter, highlighted the urgent need to decolonise data systems and research practices to prevent historical biases from being embedded within modern academic and technological frameworks.
The final panel, From Recognition to Structural Change, chaired by Alisha Lola Jones, Associate Professor of Music in Contemporary Societies at the University of Cambridge, featured contributions from Dr Esther Ojulari, Dr Safi Darden, Dr Melody Kuziwa Jombe, and Julian Johnson, CEO of Rooted by Design.
Presenting a more radical approach to institutional bureaucracy, Dr Darden and Dr Jombe introduced the University of Exeter’s B-HUGs (Black Heritage University Groups) model: “B-HUGs programmes intentionally operate with Black specificity to reclaim access and opportunity and to foster belonging through representation, affirmation and critical consciousness raising as a means of countering epistemic and affective harm experienced in the education system.”
Linking historical extraction to contemporary crises, Dr Esther Ojulari, Director of Biblioteca Cultural Ife in Colombia, connected the country’s internal armed conflict to colonial extractivism. She noted that nearly 60% of mass forced displacements between 1985 and 2020 occurred within Black communities.
Looking ahead
Looking to the future, the Reparative Futures Programme announced that its next major report will depart from traditional academic practice. Rather than being authored solely by the University, it will be co-written collaboratively with community partners and international leaders.
Closing the summit, Dr Gournet reflected on the urgency and complexity of reparative justice within higher education. She said: “It was such a privilege to go to the core of the issue of repair in the context of higher education institutions. One thing is clear: reparation and reparatory justice can take multiple approaches. At the core is the need to redress past harm and the collective effort required to ensure meaningful change that shifts the dial towards real repair.”
For more information on the Reparative Futures Programme, or to access speaker profiles and panel notes from the event (shared under ethical agreement), please contact reparative-futures@bristol.ac.uk.