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Black Lives Matter

Learn more about the work IIPP is doing to address key concerns raised by the Black Lives Matter movement.

BLM - James Eades - Unsplash

Monday 14th September 2020

The Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP) is a department within UCL and part of The Bartlett faculty, known internationally for influencing global policy decisions and creating new policy collaborations to deliver public value-driven innovations. 

However, as proactive as we are in innovation and inclusivity, a rather sobering admission is that we, as many parts of academia, have failed to address key concerns being raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. It is not enough to express our solidarity in words. We must commit to systemic change and do so by working closely with our Black staff and students both within and outside IIPP. 

Whilst we realise the movement is bigger than we are, we want to be one of the leading institutes actively taking steps to be as transparent and inclusive as possible. We cannot do this without engaging in social and racial issues. Black Lives Matter is an active protest that we are in full support of, and at IIPP we have created a Working Group to tackle the institutional racism we must admit we are part of. We have addressed three key objectives in each of our areas that we will take action on immediately: 

Teaching 

  • We will increase the number of lectures given by Black scholars or practitioners and scholars or practitioners from other under-represented groups by setting a target of three such lectures per module.
  • We will de-colonise the curriculum by engaging module leads to revise reading lists to include more Black authors and authors from other under-represented groups, more cases set outside Europe and North America, and by integrating discussions about colonialism and racism into our curriculum on economics, politics, bureaucracy, technology, and design. We will track these changes.
  • We will make IIPP more welcoming by explicitly recognising the differences between UK education and other systems and by establishing alumni networks that specifically support and mentor Black and other under-represented students.

HR and Recruitment 

  • We will widen participation by nurturing academics and professional services staff members of Black and other under-represented groups at UCL and beyond.
  • We will implement new recruitment techniques to effectively reach talented applicants from Black and other under-represented communities.
  • We will use additional advertisement platforms to reach a more diverse pool of candidates.

Research 

  • We will identify and nurture talented Black and under-represented researchers who are building their careers by using non-traditional resources and working with existing UCL inclusion initiatives.
  • We will begin tracking the number of applicants from black-in majority countries applying to IIPP positions and the percentage of those applicants that progress through the different stages of the recruitment process. This data is to be incorporated on the Action Plan.
  • We will raise awareness within IIPP staff of how unconscious biases affect the shortlisting of candidates through a mandatory training cycle.

Policy Engagement 

  • When evaluating and appraising projects, we will take into consideration whether the project has a set aim around improving participation.
  • We will add ‘Who gets to decide?’ as a key question in our Missions Theory of Change, and to choose forthcoming projects to apply this question.
  • We will actively develop links to, and seek out engagement, global south partners. 

Communications and Events 

  • We will increase diversity in panels going forward by ensuring most of our panels have at least one speaker who is Black or from an underrepresented group and that every panel of five or more people has at least two speakers who are Black or from underrepresented groups.
  • We will proactively collaborate with scholars and practitioners who are Black and from other underrepresented groups to author IIPP blogs and other IIPP communications.
  • We will ensure that people who are Black and from other underrepresented groups who serve as panellists and/or produce communications outputs in collaboration with IIPP are not enlisted to speak only on topics surrounding equality, diversity and inclusion, but are proactively enlisted to share their knowledge and expertise in their specialist areas, particularly those that align with IIPP’s research areas. 

From these immediate objectives, the Working Group will continue to work towards our long-term goals. We want to be held accountable to these objectives, so will be holding annual reviews of which the results will be made public on our social platforms. We need your help with this so please reach out to us; challenge us on our decisions and movements to ensure we continue to set the bar for racial justice. 

Signed,

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation & Public Value at University College London (UCL) and Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP)

Rainer Kattel, Deputy Director and Professor of Innovation and Public Governance at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Sarah Albala, Policy Fellow in Public Value and Policy Evaluation at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Tania Alcantarilla, Institute Administrator

Antonio Andreoni, Associate Professor of Industrial Economics at University College London (UCL) and Head of Research at the UCL Institute for Innovation & Public Purpose (IIPP)

Rowan Conway, Head of IIPP's Mission-Oriented Innovation Network (MOIN) and a PhD student at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Jose Alejandro Coronado Arciniegas, Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Helen Crane, Institute Manager

Josh Entsminger, PhD student in innovation and public policy at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Sarah Doyle, Chief of Staff to Director

Sarah Flynn, Senior Digital Marketing and Communications Officer

David Frayman, PhD student at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Lukas Fuchs, PhD student at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Simone Gasperin, PhD student at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Angeliki Kapoglou, ESA-funded PhD student at UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, currently based at the Human and Robotic Exploration Strategy Department at ESTEC

Katie Kedward, Policy Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Henry Li, Research Fellow in Health Innovation at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Kayleigh Toma, EA to Director

Tamsin Murray Leach, Honorary Research Fellow and PhD student

Victoria Phillips, Interim Communications and Events Officer

Isha Reid, Teaching and Learning Administrator

Kate Roll, Head of Teaching and Assistant Professor in Innovation, Development and Value at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Josh Ryan-Collins, Head of Finance and Macroeconomics and Senior Research Fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Naris Sungpairoj, PhD student at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Ville Takala, Senior Research Fellow in Public Value and Digital Transformation at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Sonika Tapley,  Communications Manager

Sean Tonkin, Research and Grants Officer

Asker Voldsgaard, PhD student at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)

Travis Whitfill, PhD student at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP)