This project is a partnership between science and social science with researchers based at the University of Edinburgh.
It aims to investigate and understand the current culture that supports the, at present, exclusive “Big Grant Club” in Engineering and Physical Sciences. This will be achieved by undertaking an ethnographic study, enabling a systems-level understanding of the problem.
With this enhanced understanding of the culture the project will then devise bespoke interventions designed to tackle the ‘pinch-points’ that contribute to the lack of diversity.
Finally, these interventions will be integrated and embedded through partnerships with learned societies (Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics and Royal Academy of Engineering) and the Knowledge Transfer Network with a view to contributing to more broad cultural change.
This project is funded for the first two years by the EPSRC (Inclusion Matters call) and for an additional year by the University of Edinburgh.
Evidence Base 