Planning Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at IoO

We’ve organised an all-departmental Teams meeting to discuss our plan, on 28 October 2020, 10:30 – 11:30am.

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What we've been doing

The IoO has been involved with the Athena Swan Charter since 2011, enabling us to continually reflect, learn, and improve Institute practices. 
Over the last five years, we have worked towards equal and inclusive opportunities, and have achieved success in:
Career development: 
•    increased appraisal uptake from 64% to 98% 
•    improved the gender balance of non-clinical academics, from 35% to 41% women
•    ensured balanced successful junior promotions from 20% women and 80% men to 50:50
•    increased the proportion of non-clinical women professors from 28% to 38%, narrowing the professorial pay-gap. 

Cohesion:
•    improved satisfaction with communication pathways from 32% to 56%
•    increased satisfaction with networking department-wide from 62% to 75% 

Culture:
•    appointed the first departmental Deputy Director for EDI in UCL 
•    increased  awareness of Athena SWAN from 70% to 92% 

Why we want your advice

This month we’re finalising a plan to improve the IoO for 2021–2025. We want to tackle remaining inequalities, but there are lots of ways to go about this. Currently we are working on about 50 tasks. Our proposed list of things to do in the future has a similar number. We would like your advice on what to do and what to prioritise from this long list.
For you to be able to help us, we’ve produced an extensive action plan. We currently think our most urgent needs are:  
Improving culture: We have already begun the shift away from traditional, aggressive management styles. The departmental anti-bullying and harassment group (IoO-FullStop) has begun implementing recommendations from the external culture review. We will continue to robustly tackle negative behaviours with a suite of actions that address bullying and harassment through effective communication, continued training and instilling confidence to report. 
Intersectional career development: We will address the inequalities we have uncovered both in recruitment for Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) men, and in progression of BAME women. To improve the experiences of all, we will overhaul our entire appointment process with an ambitious six-part strategy.

Your input would really help us: 
1)    hone the actions in our priority areas,
2)    identify new priorities, 
3)    or even decide actions we haven’t considered yet. 
Have your say for 2021-2025.

View our priority action plan:

View our full action plan: