ÀÖ¾ºÌåÓý

Have something you want to tell us?

An inclusive culture enables our staff and students to thrive personally and professionally, and ultimately leads to better outcomes across learning, teaching and research.

If you have any ideas for ED&I, or concerns, we want to hear from you so please get in touch with our ED&I Director, Dr Andrew Lin or complete our .

Importantly, if you or a member of staff, student, or visitor, experience any form of discrimination, harassment, sexual violence or any other form of unfair treatment, you can report this through the , or to your line manager or Interim Head of School.

Committee members

We have an active Equality and Diversity Committee in the school and are committed to working together to foster excellence in a research and learning environment that truly provides equal opportunity for all members.

• Andrew Lin, Director of ED&I

• Ian Sudbery, Deputy Director of ED&I (Race Equality, Mental Health and Disability) (Molecular Cell Biology)

• Andrew Fenton, Deputy Director of ED&I (Gender Equality and LGBT+) (Molecular Microbiology)

• James Birch (PGR representative)

• Natalia Bulgakova

• Stuart Campbell (Plants, Photosynthesis and Soil)

• Laura Carrilero (Research staff)

• Jill Copley (Professional Services)

• Melanie Hannah (Technical Manager)

• Fiona Hunter (Teaching Committee)

• Stu Johnson (Development, Regeneration & Neurophysiology)

• Stéphane Mesnage (PGR Committee)

• Jon Slate (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, cover for Alison Wright)

#Inspire lecture series

The Biosciences #Inspire lecture series champions excellent scientists from minority or marginalised groups in the biosciences. Its goal is to promote discussions about the issues that impact these groups, so that we might create a more inclusive working and learning environment, where everyone feels represented.

Some quotes from attendees of our recent events include:

This is the first talk focusing on these issues that I've had access to in over 10 years at the university. It is crucial that we have more of this, and perhaps more importantly, that university leaders are listening to and acting upon the recommendations highlighted.

It's excellent to hear these issues being raised and it's wonderful to hear the voices of people who have been marginalised in science for a long time.

You can find out more about our recent seminars and listen to these events again, here.

Gender equality

We're proud to hold an Athena Swan Silver Award, showcasing the excellent practice that we have been able to bring into the school from the former three bioscience departments that we continue to build on.

Activities

• The annual Margaret Savigear lectures. These events recognise the achievements of inspirational women by inviting one senior and one junior academic to give a research lecture open to all undergraduates, postgraduates and staff.  Supported by an alumna donation from the only female student who studied zoology in the 1950s, speakers are invited to speak frankly about their experiences as women in academia and to join a careers Q&A session afterwards with Early Career Researchers.
• Providing role models and highlighting female excellence. We’ve put together a set of equality guidelines to help organisers choose a diverse range of speakers. In doing so, we commit to having a balanced seminar series where 50% of external seminar speakers are female.
• Student assessments. Negatively marked multiple choice questions penalise risk-averse behaviour and reward risk-taking. Research shows that these behaviours may be gender-biased, leading to unequal impact of negative marking of questions. To avoid potential gender bias in our undergraduate assessments, negative marking is being removed from all our assessments.
• Student evaluation of instructors. Student evaluation of instructors is infamously biased by social stereotypes, leading to women teachers receiving more negative evaluations from students than their male colleagues. However, research shows that a simple intervention may help to reduce this bias. When invited to provide feedback, students are reminded that stereotypes can unintentionally influence evaluations, and to focus their responses on the quality of teaching and learning, rather than their opinions of the teachers. The school trialled this in 2019, and the intervention is now used across the ÀÖ¾ºÌåÓý.
• Eliminating the Gender Pay Gap. The Faculty of Science has made a commitment to work towards eliminating this and we're embarking on a programme of work to deliver a target for Gender Pay Gap reduction of 3.5 percentage points by 2025.

Race equality

We proactively support the ÀÖ¾ºÌåÓý's Race Equality Strategy and Action plan. We’re committed to supporting our staff and students and ensuring that we engender an inclusive working and learning community.

Activities

• Decolonising our teaching and research. Members of our staff have developed a to help others look at what decolonising the curriculum means, and how we can use this approach to improve our teaching and research. The response has been extremely positive and many members of staff have actively .
<