This series of six articles is inspired by themes initially arising from the Royal College of Midwives (RCM 2023) State of Midwifery Education report. These papers will be aimed at exploring the current landscape and challenges in educating the future midwifery workforce, particularly those that pertain to the Higher Education workforce itself. Every other month, the series will examine a key theme describing and commenting on the current Higher Education (HE) environment in the context of the international literature, making suggestions for improvement that student midwives, midwives and midwifery educators can consider in their practice. We discuss issues of gender, ethnicity and diversity, pay and conditions, practice, and the academic level of our profession here and in the final paper.

This, our first paper, introduces the concept of a profession using sociological theories. It considers who we are, individually (as authors, academics, and midwives) and collectively considers our identity as a profession alongside those who we teach. The inspiration for this project came from conversations between the two of us, Jo Divers and Sam Chenery-Morris, in new roles in a new academic School. We want to ensure the staff and students, most of whom are women, are supported to succeed and hopefully thrive too. We believe in the power of education to transform lives, so that our current and future midwives can make a difference in providing safe, compassionate care for our service users.