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Professor Anna Cox receives Provost’s award for equality, diversity and inclusion
19 July 2021
UCL’s 2021 Inclusion Awards saw Professor Anna Cox (UCL Psychology and Language Sciences) receive the Provost’s Award for Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
The award recognises an individual’s or team’s effort to embed equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) into mainstream work and received an overwhelming number of nominations. As Vice Dean of EDI within the Faculty of Brain Sciences, Professor Cox has transformed the Faculty’s approach to building a culture that has belonging and inclusion at its heart.
Her achievements have included creating an innovative, action-driven four-year EDI strategy, and appointing equity leads to cover five key areas: disability, gender, LGBTQ+, race and religion/belief.
By ensuring that EDI is funded and resourced, Professor Cox has overseen the delivery of a number successful initiatives within the Faculty, including:
- the appointment of a full-time Faculty Athena SWAN Coordinator;
- 12 race equity training sessions to educate staff on race issues;
- focus groups for disability and race equity, with qualitative researchers and participants paid for their time;
- a PhD and doctoral COVID carers fund, with £7,500 allocated by the Faculty to support PhD and doctoral students with caring responsibilities.
Professor Cox has also championed collaborative work across the Faculty, establishing focused working groups to address issues such as bullying and harassment, inclusive recruitment and bias.
Professor Alan Thompson, Faculty Dean, said:
“Huge congratulations to Anna for this incredibly well-deserved award. Anna has been instrumental in driving the Faculty’s efforts to provide an inclusive learning and working environment for all and in developing initiatives to promote equity across our working practices. Equality, diversity and inclusion are fundamental to the ethos of the Faculty of Brain Sciences and it is fantastic to see Anna’s achievements being celebrated by UCL’s wider community.”
This year’s awards were hosted by UCL President & Provost Dr Michael Spence and saw 95 nominations across six categories.
Two members of staff from the Faculty were shortlisted for awards:
Congratulations to Dr Manjula Patrick (UCL Psychology and Language Sciences), who was shortlisted for the Embedding Accessibility award, which recognises an individual’s or team’s effort to embed accessibility into mainstream work and in so doing deliver a more inclusive experience for disabled students and/or disabled staff.
Congratulations also to Diana Sefic Svara (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology) who was shortlisted for the Sir Stephen Wall award: Inspiring Role Model, which recognises a person who has taken the opportunity to engage with members of our community, speaking openly about their personal experiences in a visible forum that encourages and champions diversity and inclusion in a way that our students and staff can relate to.
UCL’s Inclusion Awards were founded in 2020 to highlight those who are making a difference to equity, diversity and inclusion at UCL and to provide a chance to recognise what they have achieved.