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The Sir Lenny Henry Centre is an independent body seeking to achieve accurate representation of all sections of society across contemporary UK media.he Sir Lenny Henry Centre was established in 2020 with a mission to improve the diversity of representation and employment across contemporary British media.

Uniquely, the Centre brings together the expertise of media professionals and academic researchers to develop an evidence-based approach, one that supports different media sectors to become more inclusive and representative of the diverse audiences they serve.

By identifying the interventions that work (and those that don’t) the Centre aims to bring about real and lasting change where people from all backgrounds can participate in, and contribute to, the stories that make sense of who we are as a country.

In the 6 years since we launched, we have already made quite an impact.

Our research into ‘BAME’ (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic groups), a term that is now become largely abandoned, made a critical intervention in media debates and resulted in the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 committing to its recommendations such as dropping the term altogether.

Our report into the impact of Channel 4’s Black2Front led to their Chief Content Officer citing our recommendations when bringing in a new set of off-screen diversity targets for all productions.

The Centre believes that accurate representation of all sections of society in all layers of the UK media is vital for the health of the industry. We also believe it’s crucial in ensuring a functioning democracy and enabling critical human rights issues, such as freedom of expression, to be truly implemented. The Centre aims to critically analyse policies in the media industry with a view to increasing diversity and inclusion, improving policy decisions and spreading best practice.

To achieve these aims the Centre will:

• Regularly analyse diversity statistics published by broadcasters, trade bodies and other stakeholders - from numerous annual reports to other industry publications and surveys - to track progress across the industry.
• Examine diversity statistics deficits, making recommendations for new data collection and how statistics should be reported and presented.
• Critically analyse policy announcements made by broadcasters and other industry stakeholders to increase diversity and their effectiveness by using the latest academic research and the experience of senior practitioners.
• Present the latest research on diversity in the media industry to inform industry best practice and share policies or other approaches which increase representation in the media.
• Systematically archive media diversity initiatives, publications and important milestone events to serve as institutional memory for the entire industry Commission and coordinate new and novel research into media diversity.

The Centre's Director is Jaldeep Katwala.

The lead on academic research for the Centre is Panayiota Tsatsou, Professor of media diversity. The Centre is advised by a Board among whom is Sir Lenny Henry, Angela Chan (Chair), Erika Jones, and Marcus Ryder, one of the Centre's founding members.