INKLUDE
What is INKLUDE?
INKLUDE is a research culture initiative funded by Wellcome. The acronym stands for ‘Inclusion as a Norm at King's - Leadership, Understanding the issues, Developing individuals, Enacting change’.
The project aims to test innovative ways to tackle the systemic barriers experienced by underrepresented groups across Higher Education in the UK. It also seeks to improve mechanisms for monitoring and evaluating existing policies and practices within projects, departments, faculties and networks.
INKLUDE is led by the King’s community, with members drawn across both the Professional Services and Academic staff networks.
Goals
- Understand the issues underpinning barriers to inclusivity.
- Support skills development to create a positive and supportive research culture.
- Develop individuals to mitigate barriers to inclusivity.
- Enact change through institutional commitments.
- Co-produce resources, interventions, evaluation and dissemination.
Key principles
1. Cultural humility
Promoting self-reflection and awareness of implicit and explicit biases to foster more mindful interactions
2. Cultural safety
Creating a workplace where individual identities are respected, and there is space for open listening and shared understanding.
3. Cultural competency
Embedding anti-racist policies and practices into all interactions, ensuring King’s supports cultural diversity in meaningful ways.
Methods
The project will deliver:
- A greater understanding of the effect that exclusionary policies and practice can have on people’s careers, personal lives and wellbeing.
- Cross-cutting solutions to the issues brought about by systemic barriers for underrepresented individuals in higher education.
- Joint working across the King’s staff community to develop sharable tools and approaches that makes data and insights more accessible, meaningful, and usable.
- Co-creation and testing of new approaches to improve inclusivity in practices, policies and processes (PPPs).
These will be delivered through five core work packages:
1. Understanding the issues
Conduct an external review of King’s promotion and progression practices, identifying key barriers to inclusivity and sharing findings to drive informed improvements.
2. Empowering leadership for inclusivity
Provide training and tools for research leaders, updating manager resources to support a diverse and inclusive career progression environment.
3. Supporting individual development
Implement the 'INKLUDE to THRIVE' and 'ALLIANCETHRIVE' programmes, focusing on career development for under-represented groups and allyship for inclusivity.
4. Institutional commitment and long-term change
Establish a five-year equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) strategy and enhance data collection to support sustained inclusivity efforts across the institution.
5. Collaborative development and transparent evaluation
Engage with King’s community to co-create resources and regularly evaluate project progress through bi-annual events.
Team
Project Manager:
- Jasdeep Singh
Research Fellow:
Co-Leads:
- Zoe Kennedy
- Francesca Tambellini
- Dr Aneita Pringle
Principal Investigators
Vice-Chancellor & President of King's College London
Professor of Psychology as Applied to Dentistry
Investigators
Head of Research Culture
Reader in Diversity and Inclusion
Director, Centre for Innovative Therapeutics
Vice Dean for Culture, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion
Affiliations
Funding
Funding Body: Wellcome
Amount: £1,000,000
Period: June 2024 - June 2026