7 challenges to overcome for a more inclusive research ecosystem

Caption: The Falling Walls Circle Table “Forging a More Inclusive Research Ecosystem with Key Stakeholders” (left to right) featured Nick Perkins, Lead Technical Advisor at CABI (moderator); Elsevier CEO Kumsal Bayazit; Prof Daya Reddy, President of the International Science Council; Dr Shirley Malcom, Director of Sea Change and Senior Advisor at AAAS; and Dr Karen Salt, Deputy Director at UKRI.

Every year, leading scientists, science strategists and policymakers from around the world come together at the Falling Walls(새 탭/창에서 열기) conference in Berlin. As the summit commemorates the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, discussions center around a crucial question: “Which are the next walls to fall in science and society?”

For panelists in the Falling Walls Circle Table on November 6, the barrier they hope to bring down is that of racial inequity in research.

1. “We have changed the conversation about women; we have not changed the conversation about race.”

2. We need more data for race: “What you can’t measure, you can’t progress.”

3. Scientific communities in the Global South are marginalized.

4. We need to understand what is actually in our ecosystem.

Deputy Director of Research Culture and Environment for UK Research & Innovation (UKRI)(새 탭/창에서 열기), the UK’s national funding agency, Dr Karen Salt(새 탭/창에서 열기) talked about the extensive system required for research and innovation – the breadth of which many people overlook.

I’m really emphasizing system here mainly because in many people’s mindsets, when they think about research or innovation, they think of a lone, singular person doing research. Or they think of an innovator creating some sort of innovation, and then we have some product or we have knowledge that’s at the end.

UKRI acknowledges that what we actually have is a whole massive system where we've got archivists, and we've got lab technicians, and we've got cleaners, we've got security guards, we've got caterers — we've got a whole set of people, from data specialists to others, who help make this system work. And we've not done a very good job across UKRI, within the UK or I think globally in acknowledging that our system already has a massive, inclusive wide reach of people who actually play a significant role throughout that whole process.

And there's something quite critically important that, when we start to think about creating and forging a more inclusive research ecosystem, we need to be thinking about what is actually in that ecosystem. That’s a fundamentally important place to start: there are already some amazing things there within that system, and we’re not actually recognizing and honoring the wealth of potential. …

We also have to do quite a lot to retain the people who are in our system. We’ve got an amazing set of researchers and innovators across the globe, and we need to do much more work to actually make sure that they realize that research and innovation is a space for them. And we also need to do quite a bit of work to make sure we invest, and we invest across the piece: we invest in innovative projects and ideas, but we also think about the infrastructure — we also think about what we need to put into the system to essentially allow a variety of individuals to flourish.

5. “Unless we identify the systemic issues and fix them, we can’t make real progress.”

Bayazit identified three impediments to building a more inclusive research system, all of which require delving below the surface.

First, this is an emotionally raw issue: it's about justice, equal rights, power structures, fairness, history, belonging. It makes us question our own biases, conscious or unconscious. We need many uncomfortable and respectful conversations to change the culture and evolve our mindset, and even when there’s positive intent, mistakes can be made in actions and words. I know I get it wrong from time to time. So it’s important to have the courage to keep trying and the empathy and compassion to support culture change.

Another impediment is that when you focus on one dimension of diversity, be it race or gender, that can be perceived as deprioritizing other dimensions of diversity. I always start with inclusion, and that leads to diversity. Inclusive cultures are ones where people feel a sense of belonging, regardless of who they are, the color of their skin, their gender, their religion, age, sexual orientation, ability. And when it comes to diversity, we must advance it on all fronts because progress for one will lift all, creating a more inclusive mindset.

And the third impediment is the structural barriers and system bias. You don’t always know where the biases lie in the system, but we know they exist, and we need to solve for this. Why is it that Black citizens account for 13 percent of the US population but only 6 percent of all Elsevier employees in the same country? Our people policies offer equal opportunities for all, so why doesn’t our workforce reflect the makeup of the overall population? Why is it that only 7 percent of university students in science and engineering and less than 5 percent of microbiology PhDs are Black in the US?

We can and we should lift individuals, but unless we identify the systemic issues and fix them, we can’t make real progress.

6. “We need to make it clear to people that we’re not going to move forward unless we move forward together.”

As Director of Sea Change(새 탭/창에서 열기) at AAAS, Dr Malcom works with people throughout the research ecosystem to help them make meaningful changes within their organizations. Sometimes not everyone is on board with those changes. She said convincing the detractors comes down to the question of leadership:

What kind of leadership needs to be provided in order to help people begin to understand that science is not going to progress unless we are diverse and inclusive? We somehow need to make it clear to people that we’re not going to move forward unless we move forward together and we become more open and inclusive.

I think that is the challenge that we all are going to have.

At AAAS, Dr Malcom and her colleagues are taking a multifaceted approached to race:

The targets for anti-racism must be the places where research is done, where people are educated, where science as an enterprise is advanced and supported and where scientists are enabled — within their disciplines, their professional societies, in publications and awards and recognitions.

7. How do we do this work transparently?

In closing, Dr. Salt posed a question to the other panelists:

How do we do the really hard, difficult work and really delve into this and do it as openly and as transparently as possible? I just want to note that in certain environments and places, this is actually quite hard because of whatever might be the political environment or the infrastructures that our various institutions are in – they can’t be necessarily as open as they might want to be. And in other instances, they should be more transparent than they are.

So I think there's a real key question for us: How do we give each other the space, the safety and the challenge to do this work as openly as we can?