Perhaps more than any other country in Europe, the UK has well-established equality law and practice, originating with the Race Relations Act of 1965, but based on a longer history of struggle for equality. In 2011 public bodies, including higher education institutions (HEIs), were required to respond to the implementation of the Equality Act 2010--new legislation which extended legal protections from discrimination and which required the sector to be transparent about the progress being made towards equality for all people working or studying in their campuses. So, does this mean UK has now achieved substantive equality? As chief executive of Equality Challenge Unit, the body tasked with advancing equality and diversity in higher education, the author believes that great strides have been made in the higher education sector, and in society as a whole. But it is also clear that inequality remains, albeit often in more complex and subtle forms than have been understood before. In this article, the author discusses the evolving concept of equality and explains why re-invigorating the equality agenda is an institutional priority. He also discusses the transformative power of higher education, which occupies a unique position in society, providing ideas-led drivers that result in economic as well as social change. He argues that embedding equality and diversity, particularly within systems, structures and practices, has the potential to produce huge benefits for society as a whole, contributing new and developing models of economic and social activity and embedding attitudes that staff and students will carry with them into the wider society.