Oxford University is to put up more than 20 new portraits of female and ethnic minority alumni, in a bid to improve diversity and reduce the propotions of dead white males on display.

Astrophysicist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, Oxford Law fellow and disability rights campaigner Marie Tidball, and human rights activist Kumi Naidoo are among those named to appear in new paintings and photographs commissioned as part of the university’s Diversifying Portraiture initiative.

The portraits will include a mixture of pioneering men and women, and will feature people with disabilities, people from a variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, and people from LGBTQ+ communities.

“We're not taking anyone down - but the portraits have been almost exclusively men and we're just beginning to redress the balance,” said the university’s head of equality, Trudy Coe.

“It will allow students to look up and see people who look like them. It's sending a signal to a wider range of students that they belong here.”

In 2014, Hertford College, Oxford, celebrated 40 years of being a co-educational institution by installing a series of female portraits for exhibition.

The latest commissions are part of one of the biggest university-wide projects to ever take place, and have been selected with the help of staff and student nominations.

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BBC journalist Reeta Chakrabarti, who studied at Exeter College, Oxford, is one of those chosen to sit for a portrait.

“I loved my time at Oxford,” she said, but added: “There weren't – then – many people from my background at university there.

“I hope this project will show that Oxford is open to everyone, and that it wants to be more so. I hope too that it reflects present-day Oxford back at itself, and that it encourages an ever more diverse range of people to study there.'

Professor Louise Richardson, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, said: 'There is nothing quite like walking into a room and seeing someone who looks like you honoured in a portrait on the wall. It is so important for all of us to be reminded that achievement and leadership come in all colours, shapes and sizes.'

Oxford University has faced criticism for failing to recruit enough students from state-schools and disadvantaged backgrounds.

Admissions figures published earlier this year showed the UK’s top institution had one of the lowest proportions of state school pupils of any UK university.

Ms Coe said: “We hope that this project will encourage all our departments and colleges to think of ways to celebrate the full diversity of our staff and student body, as an inspiration to current and future students and staff.”

The full list of new portraits commissioned:

Dr Norma Aubertin-Potter (librarian at All Souls College, Oxford)

Professor Dame Valerie Beral (Professor of Epidemiology at Oxford University)

Professor Dorothy Bishop (Professor of Developmental Neuropsychology at Oxford University)

Dr Penelope Curtis (arts administrator and former director of Tate Britain)

Professor Patricia Daley (Professor of the Human Geography of Africa at Oxford University)

Professor Trisha Greenhalgh (primary health care academic)

Anne-Marie Imafidon (women in science campaigner)

Professor Aditi Lahiri (Professor of Linguistics at Oxford University)

Kelsey Leonard (ﬁrst Native American woman to earn a degree from Oxford University)

Hilary Lister (first disabled woman to sail solo around Britain)

Ken Loach (television and film director)

Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch (Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford University)

Jan Morris (historian, author and travel writer)

Kumi Naidoo (South African human rights activist)

Dr Henry Odili Nwume (Winter Olympics British bobsledder)

Professor Lyndal Roper (Regius Professor of History at Oxford University)

Professor Kathy Sylva (Professor of Educational Psychology at Oxford University)