EDICa - Equality, diversity and inclusion caucus

Funded by a £4.2m grant from UKRI and the British Academy, EDICa is a national project which aims to bring an intersectional perspective to the multiple disadvantages which can face marginalised researchers and innovators. EDICa uses a co-design approach led by those with lived experience of exclusion and marginalisation to undertake and evaluate interventions designed to create equitable workplaces across the research and innovation ecosystems. EBS colleagues Professor Kate Sang and Dr James Richards are Principal Investigator and Co-investigator, respectively. Dr Richards is PI on EDIca's  Organisation of Work workstream. 

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A Fair Work Framework for the Autistic Workforce

This project was recently completed in partnership with Into Work and funded via Inspiring Scotland (£14k), and it sought to take the lived experience of autism and employment, plus the lived experience of managing autistic employees, to extend Scotland's Fair Work Framework to include the autistic workforce. Read the Summary Report.

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Accessible Laboratories: understanding the needs of disabled chemists

Accessible Laboratories aims to address two key gaps in inclusiveness and diversity within chemical sciences via focus groups with disabled chemical scientists. Firstly, the project will improve understanding and raise awareness of the experiences of disabled chemical scientists, specifically those with long term conditions or hidden impairments. Secondly, it will address the lack of understanding of what an accessible chemical sciences research laboratory would look like for those with long-term conditions and hidden impairments.

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Digital trade union work

Funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, this projects examines the use of trade union practices to resist right-wing media accounts, create influential discourse about disputes, and directly access public opinion, and how these tactics could enhance unions' bargaining capacity. 

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Understanding PGR needs for EDI changes to UKRI’s Standard Terms and Conditions of Training Grant

To understand the implications of 26 recommendations from Advance HE’s Assessment of its terms and conditions of training grants (T&Cs) from an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion perspective, as set out in the commissioning document:

•People with childcare and adult caring responsibilities 
•Disabled, Deaf  and neurodivergent people (note: we are guided by the social model of disability, which does not use person first language)
•Mode of study (full time or part time) and phased return to study (both of which may support the above groups of people but that may also have application to the wider student body) 
•Information needs

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Digital Friendly Financial Services: Lasting Power of Attorney and The Caregiver Burden

It is estimated one in three of UK adults will develop dementia and that one in nine adults will become caregivers (Alzheimer’s Society, 2018). Dementia symptoms can cause financial hardship through missed bills and inability to access online and offline channels and to help others, most likely close family, can be granted lasting power of attorney for finance and property (LPA F&P). A lasting power of attorney finance and property (LPA F&P) agreement enables an individual to appoint named others to assist with or manage their finances.

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Psychological Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis; a Recovery Framework for Malaysia

The World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic on March 12th, having confirmed spread to more than one hundred countries (World Health Organization, 2020). Malaysia currently has the highest number of cases in South East Asia. As of 14 April 2020, a total of 4987 positive cases has been reported by Ministry of Health (MOH), with a death toll of 82 and active cases numbering 2427.

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The impact of virtual socialisation on newcomers’ workplace commitment

With the rapid evolution of digital technologies, more businesses are moving to a digital working environment. Lately, the global pandemic accelerated this digital transformation, and forced people to change their behaviour in a dramatic way, indeed, businesses have moved to remote working. The use of communication and information technologies has become a way to achieve organisational affiliation and a central focus of organisational members’ everyday work and social relationships. It is expected that this digital workspace would reshape our socialisation practices and influence individuals’ attitudes and behaviours.

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Organising to beat the Trade Union Act 2016

The laws surrounding industrial action in the UK are perhaps the strictest in the Western world. In 2017, the Trade Union Act 2016 became law with a key part of such legislation requiring a minimum 50% turnout in statutory ballots, a strategy to reduce further record low levels of strike activity, but more importantly, hampering the bargaining powers of trade unions seeking to resist austerity measures put in place by UK governments post-2010, and more generally creating a further downward pressure on terms and conditions of millions of UK employers.

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Leaveism – exploring why professional workers use time off to catch up with work

There has been a growing amount of interest in presenteeism in recent years, but little research has been done in relation to the times when workers find themselves working while at home sick, when on annual or even away on vacation

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Disability Inclusive Science Careers

Although universities are making efforts to achieve gender equality, for example through Athena Swan, little work has been undertaken to improve disability inclusion in UK Higher Education. 

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Digitalised Emancipation? Digital Distraction, Patriarchy and Rural [Distracted] Women’s Experience of Facebook[ing]

This project explores the biographical ramifications of the increasing social media (SM) activity – Facebook[ing], among rural Sri Lankan women.

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