The Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science is made up of more than 200 members, who bring with them a wealth of expertise, viewpoints and experience. Our vision is that all students and staff feel valued, supported and encouraged to contribute their perspectives and talents to the Centre. More broadly, we aspire to contribute to positive change in the world, both through how we work together and in our research and in the way we engage with the wider community.
The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee was established in December 2019 to continue to support the Centre’s commitment to equal opportunity, inclusion and diversity. It includes representation from each of the Centre nodes across CIs, postdocs, students and professional staff.
In 2021, the committee developed a strategic plan to achieve the overarching objective of establishing a Centre that supports all members equally across a diverse workforce, and to work towards equal representation. The strategic plan outlines how the Centre will influence equity, diversity and inclusion throughout all areas and operations of the Centre, as well as within the scientific and wider communities. The Centre aims to do this by empowering members of underrepresented groups, highlighting the benefits of diversity along with the intrinsic diversity already present within the Centre, promoting equality, and bringing awareness to challenges faced by groups underrepresented in STEM.
Consistent with recruitment strategies outlined in the strategic plan, a number of postdoctoral fellow positions for women only were advertised by the Centre in 2021. These roles drew a significant number of very high-quality applicants and the results of this proactive strategy will provide a greater balance across gender in our Centre community.
Our Centre, by its very nature, is highly diverse, with members from all over the world, with different beliefs and cultural backgrounds. In 2021, we put in place an initiative to highlight this to the greater science community, and community in general. The inclusion of member profiles on our website, including a focus on lived experiences, shows the diversity of our Centre community and aspects associated with this. Member profiles also allow people who identify as belonging to underrepresented groups to see scientific role-models from backgrounds which may have commonalities with their own.
Throughout 2021, the EDI committee worked towards identifying training opportunities and seminars with a focus on EDI to offer for Centre members. We look forward to delivering these in 2022.