This work was undertaken with the UK Science Council member organisations with funding from the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET
Creating an inclusive culture
We explored what equality and diversity meant for a professional membership organisation. Building on our existing tool-set we created a snapshot audit tool (EDSnap), tailored to membership organisations. Our aim was to help professional bodies/societies see where they could focus attention to address equality, diversity, and inclusion. The tool creates an inclusive, growth, mindset where good practice is embedded at all levels of the organisation, and staff and members have confidence to talk about inclusion and can report on equality and diversity with certainty.
The EDSnap survey was developed to identify the level of engagement and understanding of the community in E&D in order that the toolkit, the project primary output, was matched to users’ needs. The survey was a self-completion questionnaire although help was offered and accepted by participating with facilitated meetings. A number of instances of ‘over-reporting’ were identified when examples were followed up for use as good practice examples in the toolkit. Responses covered the following categories:
• Organisation size
• Management
• Organisation staff information and profiles
• Information collection and its use
• E&D infrastructure
• E&D policies, strategies, and action plans
• Positive action programmes
Responses are collated and weighted before the information is translated into a scattergram plot based around high, medium, and low rankings.
How inclusive is your professional body and where could you quickly adapt to be more inclusive to serve your members better?
