Responsibilities of the research team leader

You can find the responsibilities of a research team leader here.

Lead by example:

  • Seek out and engage with learning opportunities to improve your understanding of EDIW
  • Raise your awareness of race and privilege
  • Learn about institutional gaslighting
  • Increase your awareness of ongoing barriers faced as a result of demographic characteristics such as gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, family background, caring responsibilities, disabilities, culture, religion, age, neurodiversity, mental wellbeing
  • Be aware of how you respond to someone who has a different background and demographic characteristics to yourself
  • Continuously reflect on your own practices
  • Acknowledge mistakes and biases
  • Become an ally to members of historically marginalised communities
  • Learn how to be an active bystander
  • Be prepared to be challenged
  • Develop active listening skills
  • Raise your awareness of mental health issues and sources of support
  • Understand the importance of the language you use and your behaviours
  • Be aware of power imbalances
  • Understand and be aware of cultural and religious holidays and practices
  • Continually raise yours and the recruitment teams awareness of the role bias can play in all aspects of recruitment
  • Develop inclusive recruitment practices from application to appointment and induction
  • Be equitable and understand the role of unconscious biases in supporting, mentoring, praising and promoting all team members
  • Develop inclusive supervision practices
  • Understand inclusive research design
  • Share good practice with colleagues and collaborators.

Networking and conferences:

  • Reflect on the diversity of your collaborators and network
  • Understand how you meet and form collaborations
  • Work to diversify your network
  • Understand the barriers others face to networking
  • Understand the barriers to attending conferences
  • Learn how to create inclusive conferences.

Creating an inclusive culture:

  • Create a code of conduct with shared values
  • Be prepared to challenge
  • Encourage allyship
  • Create a culture where differences are valued
  • Create a sense of belonging for all
  • Listen to an act on reports of bullying and harassment
  • Create and petition for an inclusive environment where everyone has a sense of belonging and reasonable adjustments are the exception e.g., quiet rooms; accessibility software of equipment; accessible equipment and work spaces; prayer rooms; lifts; gender neutral toilets and washrooms; accessible notebooks; data sharing and presentations; inclusive and accessible meetings; consider the diversity of needs before choosing booking conferences; travel arrangements; food; consider needs and cultural preferences to ensure social events are inclusive and accessible.

Inclusive research design:

Every aspect of the research pipeline is at risk of bias and offers opportunities for increasing diversity and inclusivity.

  • Project background and hypothesis e.g. bias in sources of supporting literature
  • Plan e.g., awareness of impact on participants and their families, local populations, environment, impact on research team and/or support staff such as placements field trips, travel
  • Data acquisition e.g., bias in cell lines, omics databases, human or animal subjects, source of plant or environmental samples
  • Sharing of data e.g., accessibility by researchers in LMICs
  • Impact e.g., limited local impact or global
  • Communicating results e.g., accessibility, inclusiveness of materials in a website
  • Public engagement e.g., increase the diversity of the cohorts, review accessibility (venue, resources, food and drink) inclusiveness including language and imagery
  • Output dissemination e.g., authorship recognise all contributions including technical support.

Checklist

  • Do you lead by example when it comes to EDIW? 
  • Do you understand the barriers faced by individuals as a consequence of their race, age, gender, sexuality, caring responsibilities, disability, mental well-being, culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic background? 
  • Do you know how to create an inclusive research environment? 
  • Do you reflect on your own biases and how they impact your opinions of others? 
  • Do you support everyone in your team? 
  • Do you listen and act on concerns raised by your team members? 
  • Are you an ally? 
  • Do you share inclusive practices with your colleagues? 
  • Do you support investment in inclusive infrastructure e.g., quiet rooms, prayer rooms, accessible software, accessibility in the laboratories? 
  • Do you support attendance at conferences for all e.g., choose conferences that are inclusive, in countries that do not discriminate against LGBTQ+ individuals? 
  • Do you consider EDIW in your research design? 
  • Are your outreach activities accessible to all? 
  • Is the membership of your patient or others diverse? 
  • Are your collaborators from diverse backgrounds? 
  • Do you make an effort to seek out collaborators from diverse backgrounds? 
  • Do you support your research with publications from non-colonial countries? 
  • Do you regularly attend EDIW workshops, training, and seminars? 

 

Useful Resources

The Inclusive Research Collective ran a series of online events that explored biased and exclusionary practices in life sciences research and how to overcome these to achieve equitable and representative science.  Four aspects were covered: basic research, working with human participants, data science, and the environmental impact of research. Watch the Inclusive Research Collective's seminar series. 

 

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