University of Winchester
A campus based university in the city of Winchester, Hampshire.
When we sent an FOI request asking how many sexual assaults occurred on university premises in the last three years, they responded within three hours with zero.
We ranked all 29 universities in the south of England against the following best practice criteria to assess how well each institution raises awareness of help available to survivors and encourages them to report. Other marks are given for campaigns and extra measures which show the university’s engagement with preventing and responding to sexual assault. Each received a mark out of 5.
- Anonymous form: At the time of publication, the university do not have an online form to report an incident anonymously, however, the university said this is being “actively considered”.
- Campaigns: The students’ union and university run ‘Respect’ each year for the new student intake to raise awareness of sexual assault.
- Sexual assault advice page: There is an advice page on the university’s student portal. As this is not a public facing page, we cannot confirm the content on it. However, the university say the page provides information for emergency help, definition of rape, help and support available internally and externally with relevant contact information, and guidance on deciding what to do next.
- External contacts: As above, the university say they provide contacts for the rape crisis centre and independent sexual violence advisers on the advice page on the portal.
- Other measures: Support is periodically available on campus from the Rape and Sexual Abuse Counselling Service.
Mark: 4/5