Supporting the EDI vision

Many recent people-facing strategies have been developed and have lists of SMART actions. Rather than set out a SMART action plan for this strategy, we include short descriptors associated with each pillar.

It is our intention to work alongside academic, teaching, Professional, Technical and Operational (PTO) staff and the student bodies who are mandated to make change to deliver these actions over the next two years. The Associate Provost (EDI) will advocate for this change and progress will be monitored through the EDI Advisory Group. Success will be measured by achieving the performance ambitions detailed on the following pages.

Pillars of activity

Imperial staff training and monitoring

Tools to deliver shared goals

Imperial inclusive recruitment

The people we appoint define our culture

Imperial staff research and teaching culture

Enhancing collaboration, innovation, respect and integrity 

Imperial student experience, community and culture

Improving support, equity and understanding

Imperial community cohesion

Creating a sense of belonging

Support, empower and celebrate

Integration and recognition

Visibility beyond Imperial

Communication

Pillars

Staff training and monitoring
  • Explore the purpose and impact of training beyond our legal requirements.
  • Identify gaps in training that could help facilitate inclusive recruitment.
  • Examine barriers to engagement with training for different staff groups and set out mechanisms to improve engagement. 
Inclusive staff recruitment
  • Identify academic and professional, technical and operational (PTO) departments where inclusive recruitment efforts have shown positive results.
  • Better understand the mechanisms that produce results for STEMB disciplines.
  • Hold an annual recruitment workshop highlighting beacon activities.
  • Identify the bottlenecks (such as Know Your Pool) and develop an inclusive recruitment toolkit that synthesizes these.
Imperial staff research and teaching culture
Imperial student experience, community and culture
  • Work with Strategic Planning and the Education Office, student-facing committees and the Imperial College Union to deliver an improved student experience of teaching and environment.
  • Support actions that widen undergraduate and postgraduate admissions, reduce degree awarding gaps present in under-represented groups.
  • Set out support structures that do not intimidate/alienate those they seek to engage, with a view to improving retention.
  • Extend the ‘diversification of the curriculum’ project activities and identify ways to roll these out across Imperial. Review student EDI training and support packages to better ensure awareness overall and engagement with Imperial Values. 
Imperial community cohesion
  • Establish the ‘Imperial Cohesion’ online seminar series as a regular EDI calendar event with a view to unite the wider EDI community. Use it to showcase our beacon activities and learn about best practice elsewhere nationally and internationally.
  • Bring the work of staff networks and departmental activities closer and align with the annual events organised at university level detailed in the EDI calendar discussed at the EDI Forum.
Support, empower and celebrate
  • Review staff workload allocation associated with the delivery of metrics-based actions (Athena Swan, REC, Disability Confidence Leader, Stonewall workplace index) across Imperial, and improve uniformity.
  • Associate Provost (EDI) to initiate departmental road show events into all departments annually and work closely with departments to support and empower the EDI and people-facing activities taking place within their communities.
  • Recognize and value EDI contributions, collate and improve uniformity of effort and level of recognition for those working on people and culture, EDI committees and staff networks.
Visibility beyond Imperial
  • Communicate our efforts and views externally through media articles, social media and in-person and on-line presentations to other universities within the UK and elsewhere, so that the impactful efforts made by so many at Imperial can be recognised as beacon activities in this field.