Join us for the launch of ‘Evidence Base: Growing the Big Grant Club’ on the 21 of June 2019 in the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Evidence Base formed in 2018 with funding from the EPSRC to promote and execute a systems based approach to understanding issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in STEM.

“Growing the Big Grant Club” aims to research the under representation of women in the big grant club (grant awards of £5m+). Over the past 10 years, of the big grants funded by the EPSRC, less than 5% have gone to women.

Our project is a wide-reaching collaboration involving the University of Edinburgh (Professor David Robertson, Professor Polly Arnold, Professor Karen Halliday, Dr Sara Shinton, Dr Job Thijssen, Dr Emily Porth), University of Nottingham (Dr Karen Salt), Royal Society of Chemistry, Institute of Physics, UKRI and the Knowledge Transfer Network.

Our approach is to understand this social issue from the systems-level, avoiding falling into the trap of taking a ‘deficit model’ approach whereby the interventions are aimed at ‘upskilling’ or ‘fixing’ the women. We want to fix the system that is failing to accommodate diversity.

Please join us for an afternoon of food, entertainment and discussion to mark the official launch of ‘Growing the Big Grant Club’. You will have the opportunity to meet many of our project partners as well as hear about the research we are undertaking.

Registration can be made via eventbrite. A full programme of activities will be shared at the beginning of June.

The LGBT+ Network of Networks in Higher Education (LGBTNoNHE) meets quarterly and works to support members to share, exchange and develop best practice regarding equality, diversity and inclusion in Higher Education.

The March 2019 meeting at Sheffield Hallam University covered a large number of issues including embedding LGBT into procurement practices and and supply, service delivery (accommodation, student services etc), and freedom of expression and  safe spaces in higher education.  Feedback was given by British Transport Police on their Diversity and Inclusion Strategy, and discussions took place on establishing a LGBTNoNHE website.

This meeting provides a great opportunity for members to network and share good practice, and I would recommend anyone interested in being involved in attending future meetings.

Full notes from the LGBTNoNHE are on SharePoint.

Derek Williams (derek.williams@ed.ac.uk)