Update (12 oct 2018): the EDI Strategy is now published and can be downloaded from here.
Over the past several months, I have been drafting Imperial’s first Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy.
In this work I have benefitted enormously from discussions with many people at the College and from debate within the EDI Strategy Group and the EDI Forum. The draft strategy has improved significantly from the rough framework that I first sketched out at the beginning of the year. It has a more coherent form, even if it is still unfinished. The latest version is now being circulated to various committees, but I wanted also to open it up for comment and criticism by everyone at the College.
I would therefore invite you to download the draft document (available here as a PDF) and let me have your comments or suggestions. Please feel free to contact me by email – you are not obliged to comment in public here! The plan is to have a final version ready for approval by the Provost’s Board by the end of June so I would be grateful to receive any feedback by Friday 18th May.
The aim of developing a strategy is to identify the College’s priorities and define how we – staff and students – will set about achieving them. The strategy has to be ambitious but it will only succeed if it is grounded in reality and earns widespread support within the institution. Ambition and reality can be hard things to balance, not least because equality, diversity and inclusion raise matters that are sometimes contested. But I hope that by opening up the conversation we will be able to plot a more optimal course to a more diverse and inclusive future.