A short Guide to Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
Consideration of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), is an expected component of most grant proposals. It is important to incorporate considerations of EDI throughout a proposal, not just the EDI section, and to embed EDI considerations in the design of the project and the way the programme of work will be operationalized if the proposal is funded.
The Team
Questions to Consider
- Who is on the project team – is the team diverse in terms of gender, race, career stage or any characteristic particularly relevant to your research question/context?
- How will you ensure everyone can contribute their perspectives and have those perspectives incorporated into decision-making?
- Are leadership roles or other “prestigious” positions dominated by individuals with the same characteristics?
- Are your recruitment procedures likely to reduce diversity within the team?
Potential Approaches
- Expand/modify the team membership.
- Create governance structures that promote inclusion, such as:
- Positions on the leadership team for ECRs or students
- Appoint an EDI Champion and include EDI as a standing item on meeting agendas
- Embed mentoring and transition of key leadership roles over the course of the project
- Adopt inclusive recruitment practices, including wording of adverts and incorporating consideration of candidates’ individual contexts.
The Research
Questions to Consider
- What are the gender/sexuality/racial/socioeconomic dynamics at play in your team/research context/research system?
- What specific cultural contexts and relevancies exist for your work?
- What capacity will you have to disaggregate data and analyze differences between and amongst people with different characteristics?
- How will you recruit participants for your research?
- What are the potential implications of your research question for people with different characteristics?
- Are there outcomes/answers to your questions that could exacerbate inequalities?
- How will you mitigate against the potential to exacerbate inequalities?
Potential Approaches
- Incorporate specific EDI-related questions into your research.
- Record gender/sexuality/racial/socioeconomic data for research participants if it’s possible to do so without subjecting them to increased risk (consider the context) and incorporate these data into the analysis of your main questions.
- Offer multiple engagement pathways to increase the diversity of research participants:
- Offer opportunities to participate at different times of day
- Share information about opportunities to participate through different communication pathways – people get information in different ways
- Offer different ways to participate – interviews, online surveys, in-person, virtual
- Monitor participation to check for recruitment biases.
- Train project staff to be aware of and sensitive to inequalities.
Impact
Questions to Consider
- What impact could your findings have on different groups?
- Are your findings like to ameliorate or exacerbate existing inequalities?
- Who will you be sharing your findings with?
- How will you be sharing your findings?
Potential Approaches
- Consider diverse dissemination pathways for sharing information.
- Draw on knowledge of the local context to assess the best way to get your findings to the appropriate audiences.
- Adopt Monitoring and Evaluation approaches that will capture different kinds of impact.
Final things to keep in mind...
- Be specific rather than generic – referring to institutional EDI policies and processes may be helpful but is not sufficient.
- If there are risks or potential negative consequences, develop mitigation strategies and flag these in your proposal.
- Elements of your proposal addressing EDI should be appropriately resourced in your budget – put your money where your mouth is.
- Safety - consider EDI in training and risk assessments.