Modern Slavery Governance in Universities: Beyond Compliance

Nick Drydakis

No 1784, GLO Discussion Paper Series from Global Labor Organization (GLO)

Abstract: This study examines how universities address modern slavery within their governance structures and practices, with reference to the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015. The study develops and applies the Modern Slavery Reflexive Assessment Scale, a sixty-item instrument grounded in the Pluralistic Framework for the Study of Economic Exploitation. Data were collected in 2025 from eighteen UK universities through structured assessments completed by institutional officers. The findings indicate that longer-standing institutional engagement and stronger sustainability performance are consistently associated with higher levels of reflexive practice, suggesting that continuity and embedded governance cultures support movement beyond symbolic compliance. Progress is most evident in policy development, governance arrangements, and sustainability integration. Engagement with intersectional and decolonial perspectives is limited, while survivor-centred practices, participatory monitoring, iterative learning, and systematic impact evaluation remain underdeveloped. The findings also provide the basis for developing the Reflexive Anti-Slavery Governance Model for Higher Education.

Keywords: Modern slavery; Higher education governance; Universities; UK Modern Slavery Act 2015; Sustainability and universities; Intersectional and decolonial perspectives; Economic exploitation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I23 I28 J47 J78 K31 K38 M14 O35 Q01 Z18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:glodps:1784

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