UK Research and Innovation has launched a consultation on the organisation’s new equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy. Setting out an ambition for an inclusive research and innovation system, the new strategy will detail the organisation’s long-term commitment to achieving this aim.
The open consultation runs from 13 January with a closing date of midday on 28 March 2022 and input is welcomed from across the research and innovation system to refine the draft strategy and inform the development of future action plans and measures.
The development of the new strategy has been driven by wide-ranging engagement, discussion and challenge from a wide variety of individuals and organisations with UKRI and its councils.
UKRI Chief Executive Professor Dame Ottoline Leyser said:
The launch of the consultation on our equality, diversity and inclusion strategy marks an important milestone in our ambition to work with the community to reshape research and innovation culture so that it truly values and supports different people, places and projects.
Despite significant progress, there is much further to go. Change is too slow, with deep inequalities stubbornly embedded and no silver bullet solutions. There are many, often directly conflicting ideas about the best ways to effect change, and many coordinated interventions will be necessary.
UKRI, as an employer, funder and convenor of the system, is committed to building the evidence base and delivering the actions needed to bring about the transformative change that is so critical for research and innovation success.
I encourage anyone with a stake in research and innovation, from all backgrounds, roles and experiences, to take part in the consultation. This will help us to co-create a research and innovation system by everyone, for everyone.
UKRI Executive Champion for People, Culture and Talent, Professor Melanie Welham, said:
As the UK’s largest public funder of research and innovation UKRI has a responsibility to catalyse and convene change across the system.
We welcome and encourage input from across our communities into the consultation, throughout the development of our strategy and after its publication later this year.