Request received: 22 July 2024
I want to thank you and you team once again for working with me to help understand the under-representation of Black and minority ethnic colleagues on UKRI decision-making committees. You might be aware that this data, and my conclusions and recommendations, were used to inform a written evidence submission[1] to the Diversity in STEM Inquiry of the Science and Technology Select Committee of the House of Commons.
The Committee’s responses to my submission, my discussion with them, and their recommendations, are available here[2].
Since some time has passed, I’m writing to let you know that I am conducting an impact study, the aim of which is to evaluate UKRIs response, and to assess the ways in which representation might have changed as a result of UKRI activities, and to understand the causal links between UKRI actions and outcomes (please note for reference that this impact study has been approved by Royal Holloways Research Ethics Committee; reference ID: 369).
Freedom of Information Request
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Data for 2020/21 to 2023/24 I would be grateful if you could please provide the following data. For new to be comparable with previous data, please replicate the data tables in Freedom of Information requests FOI2022/00244 and FOI2021/00376, and making the same assumptions and using the same measures, supply data for the subsequent period, financial years 2020/21 to 2023/24.
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In the Parliamentary evidence submission mentioned above, the following recommendations were made:
I. “UKRI leadership needs to develop a clear vision of what proportionate representation and inclusion should look like among UKRI decision-makers, coherently across RCs. The development of this vision requires the guidance of stakeholders with lived experience of marginalisation and scholars with specific research expertise.”
II..“The final version of UKRI’s recently published draft Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy needs to commit to monitoring, publicly reporting on, and ending underrepresentation in its decision-making structures, beginning with its leadership teams and including all of its committees. This programme of work also needs to be properly resourced.”
III. “A set of coherent, evidence-based, specific and time-bound actions needs to be developed that aims to understand the causes of under-representation among decision-makers, that increases diversity and inclusion, and uses evidence to check that actions have impact.”
IV. “Guidance to staff in all RCs needs to include a requirement to ensure, at the very least, the proportionate participation of ethnic minorities. Adherence to this and other requirements needs to be monitored.”
V. “UKRI should put to actual use the ethnicity (and other) data that it collects relating to its decision-making structures, and do so in a routine, timely and transparent manner.”
Although RCs are represented within UKRI leadership structures, it is important to consider the decisions made by both UKRI as a body with overarching responsibilities over RCs, and by RCs individually. It would be useful for the impact analysis to consider whether or not the recommendations above have implemented by each. In a table, please note ‘Yes’ where recommendations have been implemented.
In those cases, please provide written evidence of internal decision-making leading to implementation. For example in the case of (IV), please supply any updated written guidance to UKRI staff on committee building since the date of FOI2021/00376. Please also supply internal correspondence and minutes of meetings which make reference to the written evidence submission mentioned. For each remaining cell, please provide state reasons for not implementing recommendations.
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UKRI and RC Committee Meeting Dates and Minutes I would like to understand decision-making and actions emerging from UKRIs overarching, principal EDI Committee (2015/16 to 2023/34), and also the relationship between its actions and my evidence report. It may be impractical to send to me the minutes of all committee meetings in this period, so if you could please send me the dates of all meetings for this committee for now, it will allow me to select the meeting dates that would be the most appropriate.
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Records referring to evidence submission Please could you send to me minutes of meetings in UKRI (including RCs), and any internal correspondence, in which the evidence submission has been mentioned? This will allow me to understand the context in which it has been discussed.
Clarification Received: 13 August 2024
You’ve requested a timeframe for the information in parts 2, 3 and 4. I assume that UKRI and RCs would have begun considering evidence from at least the time of my first FoI, the response to which which is dated 31/07/2020 so I think that serves as a reasonable start date. The original date of my current request to you could serve as an appropriate end date for this period (22/07/2024). This covers nearly four years. I apologise for not specifying this information to you previously.
