Lead: Louise Jennings working with Lee Mason, Bharat Pokhrel, Engagement Champions (Katherine Deane, Hannah Dee, Jennifer Jennings, Lisa-Dionne Morris, James Richards), Paul Walton, and Engagement officer (TBC).
We will build a broad network involving key stakeholders in the engineering, physical and mathematical sciences (EPMS) research and innovation community: academic and industry partners, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) projects, funders, learned societies and others that set research guidelines and policies, national and international EDI initiatives. The outcome of WS1 is a growing community of shared members engaged in the Hub’s activities.
Lead: Vania Dimitrova working with Dorothy Monekosso.
The Resource Centre which will bridge existing resource gaps, providing a comprehensive resource to address community needs. Structured around the Hub’s core themes (Career Pathways, Research Funding, and Organisational Culture and Space) our interactive online Resource Centre will be co-designed through engagement and consultation with the members of the Hub’s network (linking with WS1 and WS4). The Resource Centre will enable us to identify and disseminate good practice from across the EPMS research and innovation community and provide advice on matching or adapting solutions to meet EDI challenges in different disciplinary and organisational contexts.
Lead: Paul Walton working with Lisa Hill and James Richards.
We will commence with a scoping review to identify and synthesise existing literature on EDI indices, frameworks, and models. The outcomes of the scoping review will inform the development of EDI indices that enable us to assess the EDI maturity level of organisations and institutions, and to identify the readiness level of EDI activities and interventions – from initial pilot to successful full-scale implementation across multiple settings (see Hub Vision). EDI indices will be developed through a consultative process. We will invite participants from across the network to co-design and co-create indices and supporting guidance materials that empower and support the EPMS community to adapt materials to conduct contextualised self-assessments.
The outputs from WS3 will also be used to help inform the structure of the Resource Centre (WS2) and its metadata.
Lead: Elaine Brown and Cristina Tuinea-Bobe, working Udy Archibong, and Katherine Deane.
Working with our Network of Partners (WS1) and EDICa, we will engage with a wide spectrum of underrepresented communities to identify barriers across key career transitions, and inclusive culture challenges faced by the EPMS community. We will follow best practice for involving multiple stakeholders in co-creation activities, engaging stakeholders in a practical way and gathering insights through a structured workshop format facilitated by practitioners. We will pay close attention to our virtual and physical environments to support and enable inclusive communication and engagement. We will use priority setting partnership methods to identify EDI evidence gaps, and to identify which should be prioritised for the flexible fund (WS5).
Lead: Lisa Hill working with Vania Dimitrova, Elaine Brown, Lee Mason, and Cristina Tuinea-Bobe.
We will use the flexible fund to support and empower the EPMS community to:
- Pilot co-created interventions that meet validated unmet EDI needs and challenges.
- Scale-up the most effective interventions to support implementation across multiple settings.
- Evaluate the effectiveness of interventions – both pilot projects and projects implemented at scale.
Accessibility fund will be reserved for successful projects to support reasonable adjustments, accommodating the needs of disadvantaged groups (e.g. disability, caring responsibilities).
We will consult widely with the community (WS4) to co-create priorities for each call. Applications will be assessed by an Opportunity Review Panel. We anticipate funding a small number of pilot projects. The primary emphasis will be on scaling-up.
Lead: Dorothy Monekosso working with Louise Jennings, Lisa Hill, Bharat Pokhrel, and Engagement Champions (Katherine Deane, Hannah Dee, Jennifer Jennings, Lisa-Dionne Morris, James Richards).
We will facilitate widespread and sustained adoption and implementation, building on examples of interventions that have been successfully embedded across UKRI and beyond. Working in partnership with funders, learned societies, higher education institutions, and industry through a Steering Committee for Widespread Adoption, we will develop national-level guidelines, pledges, policies and programmes that see the most successful activities and interventions fully embedded.
Lead: Vania Dimitrova and Louise Jennings, working with Bharat Pokhrel, Lee Mason, and Megan Barnes.
This workstream concerns the overall management of the Hub. This includes: monitoring the resourcing and progress in each WS, risk review and mitigation, regular project reviews, working with Strategic Advisory Board and the Hub’s Critical Friends, effective engagement with the funders and the broad research and innovation community.
