Equality, Diversity and Inclusion

Statement of Commitment

The Neuroscience Institute is committed to promoting and embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) through all aspects of our work.

Building on our existing EDI work, this strategy is our vision for how the Institute will further advance equality, diversity and inclusion for our community.

EDI is beneficial for all. By working collaboratively with our partners across the University (i.e. BRC and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals), we will create an environment that achieves greater impact in our research and enhances the experience of our communities and workforce. We will attract and support a diverse range of talented staff and students, fostering equal opportunity for everyone to achieve their potential.

Where universities might once have primarily focused on EDI initiatives to ensure legal compliance, we now must embrace institutional cultural change along our core values of inclusion, integrity, compassion and collaboration. 

Through embedding these principles we will foster the development of a culture of impact, excellence, inclusion, collaboration, and effectiveness.

Incorporating EDI considerations into our research will enhance its relevance and sensitivity towards diseases, patients and the broader community in Sheffield and beyond.

Our approach

The Neuroscience Institute EDI strategy will address the following areas:  

• Promoting an inclusive research environment to facilitate wider participation and improving the EDI embedment into research  studies.
• Attract, develop and retain high quality staff to improve research capacity and create a more diverse and vibrant workforce and improve the research environment for participation from diverse groups.
• Deliver an impactful and expanded network of effective research collaborations to benefit the science community. 
• Commitment to continued reflections and improvements as we seek to embed EDI across everything we do.

Widening participation and EDI incorporation into research

The Neuroscience Institute is committed to the promotion of an inclusive research environment to facilitate wider participation and involvement from diverse groups. 

We therefore have identified three key areas important to widening participation in our overarching objectives: 

1. Community engagement and improved public understanding of discovery and translational research.
2. Research studies with a focus on increasing EDI embedment into the design and analysis of both preclinical and clinical Neuroscience research. 
3. Involvement of patients and the community across all stages of the research pathway - including but not limited to: Prioritisation of research projects, study design, regular updates throughout study and after completion. 

Diverse workforce and increased capacity implementation

The Neuroscience Institute is proactively working to instil a diverse and inclusive environment where research can thrive and provide equitable benefits to people from all communities. Our community of researchers is varied and diverse in terms of backgrounds, experiences, perspectives and skills. We place great value on continual diversification of the Neuroscience Institute staff and students. By further improving diversity, the outputs generated have the potential to achieve greater reach and impact to those currently underrepresented. 

It is key to understand the current landscape to enable measurable growth, development and areas potentially requiring more targeted intervention. 

To do this, we will:

• Systematically collect, analyse and review diversity data relating to our staff annually through an optional online form with clear commitment as to how these data will be used to strengthen the diversity and inclusivity of our community of researchers. 
• The collection of sensitive data will be managed with the greatest respect and integrity. Confidentiality and GDPR principles will be strictly adhered to.
• Utilise the diversity data to evaluate whether the Institute support provided could be more equitable looking at data such as allocation of URI funded studentship, successful grant applications, fellowships, lead authors on publications etc. in relation to staff characteristics. This may help to identify areas requiring targeted intervention.
• Engage with the Fair Recruitment Advisor scheme for advice on impartial and  non-judgmental adverts and recruitment. 

Implementation

Significant effort has been taken to gain a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape with respect to equality, diversity and inclusion within our community through a PI and ECR EDI questionnaire sent to all members of the Institute. Analysis of collected diversity data will be used to create a community diversity baseline. 

Once these baseline statistics have been collected and analysed, we will endeavour to implement various strategies to build a more diverse group of participants, if needed. The effect of any implemented changes will be reassessed annually.

Achievements and future aims

• Established EDI Lead, EDI Core Group and EDI Wider Group: One of the Co-Directors of the Institute has overall responsibility for EDI and will be responsible for oversight of EDI within the theme workforce and EDI workstreams. We have appointed an Institute EDI Lead, who is in charge of monitoring overall balance and distributions, and developing policies to furthering the Institute’s EDI strategies. A core EDI group has been established and meets monthly, while the wider EDI group (consisting of members from various departments and faculties and the BRC) meets every three months to provide additional input and advice. 
• Wider dissemination of opportunities:  Not all members of the Neuroscience Institute are recruited directly but might be recruited by associated departments and faculties, our influence on these appointments will be minimal. We are, however, satisfied that these appointments will adhere to the general UoS EDI principles. We have identified that the initial dissemination phase of recruitment opportunities will be where we can have the greatest impact. Therefore, our focus will be on widening the dissemination of job opportunities through creative methods for example through local radio adverts, online platforms, social media and creating dedicated job listings on the URI website. 
• ECR leads and ECR community: Each Faculty within the Institute is represented by an ECR lead. ECR leads attend the executive meetings. We have created an ECR email group to be able to reach members of this group directly and quickly. 
• Increase participation: Our executive meetings are delivered in a hybrid style and timed to suit executive members with family commitments. Our seminars are delivered in locations that alternate, to facilitate mobility within members from different departments and faculties. 
• We will establish a trans-faculty PI buddy scheme. PIs without existing (or limited) collaboration outside their own faculty will be encouraged to identify at least one PI in a different faculty, arrange at least one face-to-face meeting and draft a short cross-disciplinary project proposal over the next 12 months. 
• Mentoring: We have established a mentoring scheme within the Neuroscience Institute. At present we have 17 senior academics across all faculties who have volunteered to be mentors. We will advertise this scheme more widely across the Neuroscience URI and also explore options for formal mentorship training.
• Training and development: The University mandates a wide range of EDI training courses and offers further voluntary training. We will highlight these opportunities to staff whenever possible. This could be via the monthly news bulletin or email notifications. We will also have EDI sessions in our seminar series which is being advertised to all members of the Institute via Google Mail and Calendar invites. 

Improving impact through collaboration

We will strive to deliver an impactful and expanded network of effective research collaborations. By forging strong relationships with our academic and industrial partners we will bring together technologies and research approaches to benefit our local, regional, national and international communities, helping to raise research awareness We will champion EDI principles and develop EDI planning across all research activities, including but not limited to:

• Grant applications
• Study designs
• Showcasing impact cases via an array of platforms
• Participating in national and local networks related to EDI
• Share best practice and incorporate it into local EDI activity

Embedding approaches

To ensure the Institute delivers an evidence-based strategy for implementation of EDI principles we will adopt an open and reflective approach. This will be iterative and will incorporate regular reviews of progress throughout our structure and partner organisations. This approach will enable our infrastructure to measure the progress and impact of our key EDI themes (widening participation, research capacity and improving impact through collaboration). 

This EDI strategy will be published on the Institute websites along with other key resources and information about the EDI work taking place. This improves transparency with the community and will provide accessible methods for interested individuals to learn more and get in touch.

These key themes will allow the Institute to harness a vibrant, forward-thinking energy within our activities, and ensure that an inclusive and diverse environment is promoted and embraced. 

We are acutely aware that the more we collaborate and instil positive EDI approaches the more effective our strategy will be. Key to advancing this will be the relationships across our collaborators and raising awareness across our Institute. 

Read the full Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy