EDI Hub+: Sharing and Implementing EDI Practices for Sustained Transformation in EPMS

It is widely recognised that the Engineering, Physical and Mathematical Sciences (EPMS) community faces many equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) challenges, particularly in relation to gender, ethnicity, and disability, both physical and neurological. All too often, funded EDI interventions have been small in scale, limited in scope, and time constrained, and importantly, lacking evidence to deliver widespread and sustainable transformation. Engaging with the broad EPMS community to identify and share good EDI practice, determine unmet EDI needs, and evaluate what does and does not work, our aim is to scale-up EDI interventions that demonstrate success at the pilot stage, and provide advice, funding and partnership-building support to progress them on the journey towards widespread implementation and adoption. The Hub was scoped in consultation with EPMS research and innovation community members. We will coordinate the work via seven workstreams. In WS1, we will build a broad network of EPMS community partners, including relevant learned societies, the UK EDI Caucus, industry partners, associations, professional bodies, and international collaborators. In WS2, we will create an online EPMS EDI Resource Centre that documents successful EDI activities and interventions and disseminates good practice from across the EPMS research community and beyond, both in the UK and internationally. In WS3, we will create, share, and utilise indices that assess the implementation readiness of EDI activities and interventions (from initial pilot to successful full-scale implementation across multiple settings), and assess the EDI maturity level of organisations and institutions. These indices will allow us to more effectively match interventions with institutions. In WS4, we will engage widely to identify unmet needs and co-create EDI interventions to address those needs. In WS5, we will provide flexible funding to pilot co-created interventions, scale up successful pilot projects, and evaluate the effectiveness of interventions – both pilot projects and projects implemented at scale. The most effective interventions will be scaled-up across disciplines, organisations, or nationally, working in partnership with funders, learned societies and other key stakeholders in WS6, enabling sustained transformation of practice across the sector. The Hub will be managed and coordinated via WS7, which focuses on project management, including risk management and evaluation. All of the leadership team have prioritised opportunities to drive forward EDI in their roles to date; the majority work in the EPMS space spanning different disciplines, and many have been engaged in cross-disciplinary EDI collaborations. Bringing this leadership team together in EDI Hub+ will allow us to build and draw on past initiatives and provide a platform to integrate and further accelerate these to wider adoption. As well as the close-knit leadership team from four northern universities: Leeds, York, Bradford, and Durham, we will have five hub Engagement Champions (Aberystwyth, Bristol, UEA, Heriot-Watt, Leeds). Not only will these Engagement Champions facilitate the project’s geographic reach to the wider UK research and professional services, but, uniquely, they will lead on challenges faced by underrepresented groups through their own distinctive expertise, track record and lived experiences in relation to gender, race and ethnicity, disability, and neurodiversity.