Project Overview
Find out about the Wellcome-funded project which led to the production of the toolkit and the team who helped bring it to life.
Project funding and findings
The toolkit has emerged from a Wellcome Research Enrichment - Diversity and Inclusion Award (made to Chris Petkov and Candy Rowe in 2018) to develop an EDI toolkit for research leaders. As leaders of research groups ourselves, we recognised the important role that we play in creating an inclusive research environment for everyone. We wanted to help to empower leaders at any career stage to become positive role models. Along with Farhana Chowdhury, who was employed on this project as Research Assistant, we looked at the literature and consulted research leaders to find out what some of their challenges and barriers were to engaging with EDI training and activities, in order to better understand what might help.
Then came the Covid pandemic, and we had to pivot our project towards developing online tools rather than face-to-face training as we had originally envisaged. Looking back, although a challenge at the time, we have ended up with something that potentially has more reach: an online toolkit that can continue to develop and that we can share with the wider research community. Whilst the project focused on senior academic colleagues, we hope that the toolkit can be of use to anyone working in research, at any career stage, wanting to learn more and help accelerate change. Leadership is about seeing what needs changing and doing something about it – anyone can be a leader and lead from where they are in a research organisation.
We’ve learned a considerable amount through this project too. We have learned both about EDI issues that we were not as familiar with, by taking time to ‘step into the shoes of others’ and to gain a deeper awareness of the issues and also to consider what we could practically do to better support people from a variety of backgrounds in our teams, groups and disciplines. We know there is still a lot to learn and do, and we hope that you find this toolkit useful to help create safe, diverse and inclusive environments where creativity, ideas and people can flourish.
The development of the toolkit has been very much a team effort, with Kimberly O’Brien (funded by Research Culture QR) joining the team in 2022 to finalise the content and build the website that you see. Kimberly has worked alongside and been supported by Vi Parker, ensuring that leaders in research and colleague networks have been consulted throughout the process to collaboratively create the EDI toolkit and that the work sits in the wider EDI training that we provide here at Newcastle. This toolkit is not meant to be ‘all anyone needs to know’, but hopefully it is a useful starting point for us all to feel that we can take ownership of the important responsibility for learning about EDI and the challenges others face, and to feel that we can all do something about it.
Meet the project team
Candy Rowe: Dean for Research Culture and Strategy
I’m a Professor in Animal Behaviour and Cognition at Newcastle University, and also our University’s Dean for Research Culture and Strategy. This means that I have day-to-day responsibility for developing and delivering our research culture action plan, part of which is to ensure that our research environments are safe and inclusive, and that everyone has equal opportunity to grow their ideas and succeed in their chosen career. Prior to this role, I was Director of EDI in my Faculty, working with colleagues and students to achieve a Silver Athena Swan Award for our Faculty and co-leading the University’s ‘For Families’ project. I am currently working on tackling inappropriate behaviours and mis-naming in research (with Farhana), increasing representation on decision-making committees, and addressing inequalities in funding at Newcastle. I am also Chair of the BBSRC’s Expert Advisory Group for EDI. The toolkit has been a real team effort, and a massive shout out to everyone at Newcastle who has given their time to the original research, as well as informing content and giving us really valuable feedback.
Chris Petkov: Professor of Comparative Neuropsychology
I am a Bulgarian refugee to the United States and more recently an immigrant to the United Kingdom. I am now Professor of Comparative Neuroscience at the University of Iowa and Newcastle University, and am deeply grateful to Candy Rowe for seeing that something vital was missing from my scientific research, an opportunity for me to learn about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Candy led the Wellcome Trust application and I was delighted to have been given an opportunity to learn about issues I did not know I knew so little about. I hope this toolkit is as useful to you EDI Champions, as it has been for me.
In a NUBI EDI newsletter I wrote: “We all can be EDI champions each and every day, as a natural part of what we do. All that is needed is for us to change our perspective somewhat and to become more comfortable asking questions about inclusivity and diversity.”
Farhana Chowdhury: PhD Student
I am a PhD student at Newcastle University. My project focuses on human behaviour change, using methods from intervention sciences. Alongside this project, I’m a co-chair on the Belonging and Inclusion workstream of the Equality Project, and EDI PGR representative of the Biosciences Institute. I was previously a research assistant, helping with the development of this toolkit. I am interested in understanding workplace hierarchies, EDI and improving research culture using person-centred approaches. I hold a degree in psychology and a master’s degree in health psychology.
Kimberly O'Brien: EDI Project Coordinator
I have worked on this project as part of a 12-month secondment with the University EDI Team as an EDI Project Coordinator. I worked in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics as an Operations Administrator since 2019. As part of my previous role, I co-chaired the School’s Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team which recently received its bronze renewal award in 2022. The work I completed for the Athena Swan renewal developed my interest in EDI-related projects and led to me joining the project. I am a graduate of Newcastle University with a BSc in Biology (2013 to 2016). I also hold an MSc in Industrial and Commercial Biotechnology (2016 to 2017). I joined the project to help bring the toolkit to life!
