Reports of sexual misconduct made to the Australian National University rose sharply last year, a long-awaited report shows.
In 2021, the university registrar received 31 formal reports of sexual misconduct, up from nine reports in 2020 and four reports in 2019.
Of the 31 reports, 21 went on to an inquiry and all respondents were found to have engaged in misconduct.
Seven reports were in progress and yet to be heard by an inquiry at the time of publication. Three were either beyond the university's jurisdiction or had already undergone other processes.
Where misconduct was found, more than half of respondents were excluded from the university; 38 per cent were suspended or denied access to the university for a period of time and 10 per cent had conditions placed on their enrolment.
The number of disclosures about sexual misconduct through an online form also increased from 250 in the first year, from October 2019 to September 2020, to 366 disclosures in the second year, October 2020 to September 2021.
Online disclosures included people recounting personal experiences, people supporting someone with a disclosure, witnesses and ANU services. Disclosures do not necessarily lead to a formal report, but link the person with support.
The most recent reporting year showed 81 per cent of those impacted by sexual misconduct were undergraduate students and 70 per cent lived on campus.
Three-quarters of the alleged victims were women and 83.5 per cent of alleged perpetrators were men.
More than half of the disclosed behaviour involved sexual harassment and 43.5 per cent related to sexual assault.
In the recent reporting period, 51 per cent of incidents occurred in a residential hall or college, 36.7 per cent occurred off-campus, 8.2 per cent happened at the Acton campus and 4.1 per cent happened online.
The university has overhauled its sexual violence prevention strategy after students protested in August last year over broken promises since the 2017 Australian Human Rights Commission's report on sexual assault and harassment uncovered the scale of the problem.
ANU Students' Association women's officer Avan Daruwalla said the university promised to release this data in 2018 but had dragged it's feet.
"I think it's really important that we're seeing this change, but I think it's also important to acknowledge that it was also a failure because much like many of the other promises in this space, it's coming far too late," she said.
Ms Daruwalla said previously students found it difficult to figure out how to disclose or report their experiences to the university and the introduction of new staff towards the end of the year made the process easier.
She said the lockdown period where students were confined to residences and the growing public awareness of sexual violence ignited by rape allegations from former political staffer Brittany Higgins could have also contributed to the increase in reported incidents.
"I think that likely there will be higher numbers this year ... but I think that that's probably a good thing."
Ms Daruwalla said there was no line of accountability at the university to address problems with services or when reports were not released as promised and more work needed to be done on primary prevention of sexual violence.
The ANU's deputy vice-chancellor for student and university experience, Professor Ian Anderson, said the increase in reports was because survivors felt increasingly confident an inquiry into sexual misconduct would result in a fair hearing with an outcome.
"They should be confident that the university takes this absolutely seriously, that no form of sexual violence is acceptable, and that perpetrators will be appropriately disciplined," he said.
Professor Anderson said previously there was only one case manager within the Respectful Relationships Unit, which was isolated from the other social and health services at the university.
"We have invested more in the development of a specialist team with expertise in sexual violence and response that can work with other service providers across the ANU such as general practitioners, nurses, and counsellors," Professor Anderson said.
"That was a learning from us that we think that it's part of our commitment to strengthening our response and strengthening through continuous quality improvement was a valuable learning."
Professor Anderson said all student living on campus have done training on consent with a further round of training planned for later in the first semester.
The university will report data annually and will finalise a review of its sexual violence prevention plan within the next four weeks.
