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I think we need cake. As a group, we are one year old! Thank you for everyone who has helped us long this journey and continues to support our work!
It's been a very busy year- a few quick highlights:
We lobbied via #MyScienceInquiry to launch an exploration of research funding with regards to equality, diversity, inclusion & accessibility - this was widely covered by the University press offices, eg https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/03/13/university-researchers-part-of-call-for-diversity-in-stemm-inquiry/
We lobbied via #MyScienceInquiry to launch an exploration of research funding with regards to equality, diversity, inclusion & accessibility - this was widely covered by the University press offices, eg https://news.liverpool.ac.uk/2019/03/13/university-researchers-part-of-call-for-diversity-in-stemm-inquiry/
You can see the pitch given by @ProfRachelGaN to the @CommonsSTC - which was supported by the embryonic group of TIGERS - highlighting our case and why we think we need to look into the funding steams with an EDI&A lens
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/dd962700-5612-4bee-b2ec-543064e703cc?in=10:52:42&out=11:04:00
https://parliamentlive.tv/event/index/dd962700-5612-4bee-b2ec-543064e703cc?in=10:52:42&out=11:04:00
We now have over 50 members - we work on long term activites (e.g. supporting the core activities around research funding data and #MyScienceInquiry), as well as shorter term, & supporting our members in their individual issues surrounding our mission https://www.tigerinstemm.org/governance/mission-and-vision
Have a range of interested people within our group means that TIGER activities & impact is varied - we've managed two letters into the Sunday Times, including this one about women & physics, co-signed by >1800 people https://www.tigerinstemm.org/news/letter_to_st
Our second letter, and continued work, is in support of trans people - this is really important as equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility issues in STEMM (and academia) covers all of the protected characteristics https://www.tigerinstemm.org/news/letter_20062019
Within the group - we have a number of focus groups to provide critical mass on issues for each protected characteristics - and we also try to maintain an intersectional view (people may be members of two or more underrepresented groups) - all focused on equality issues
Slight teaser - the focus groups will be reporting shortly about some issues that we've been exploring - I won't break the big reveal, but there's been a significant amount of work amongst our number and the outputs look amazing (thanks for everyone's work!)
The TIGERS have also coalesced a few groupings to explore different issues and we're helping to publish work within the academic press.
Two recent examples come to mind - one about straight-washing in ecology with three
authors https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1025-9
Two recent examples come to mind - one about straight-washing in ecology with three
authors https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1025-9
A second example highlights the value in social media, specifically on providing connections for typically underrepresented individuals - an aspect that the TIGERS have demonstrable benefits from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41570-019-0121-3
We've also been lobbying different societies to up their game, eg a few of us wrote within the @iom3 magazine, @materialsworld, to suggest that there needs to be demonstrable change to address issues around sexual harassment in engineering
https://www.iom3.org/materials-world-magazine/news/2019/aug/29/get-talking-dealing-sexual-harassment-materials-science
https://www.iom3.org/materials-world-magazine/news/2019/aug/29/get-talking-dealing-sexual-harassment-materials-science
We've been running this twitter account as one of our primary focal points - including a number of rotating curators from within our membership - why is this important?
We had confirmation yesterday that our tweets on EDI are influencing policy within the research councils
We had confirmation yesterday that our tweets on EDI are influencing policy within the research councils
Returning to our primary focus - just before Parliament broke up, the 'then' chair of @CommonsSTC (Norman Lamb) wrote to the head of @UKRI_News to directly ask for evidence to help frame a successful #myscienceinquiry
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/science-technology/Correspondence/19-09-09-Chair-to-UKRI-re-data-for-equality-diversity-inclusion-and-accessibility-inquiry.pdf
https://www.parliament.uk/documents/commons-committees/science-technology/Correspondence/19-09-09-Chair-to-UKRI-re-data-for-equality-diversity-inclusion-and-accessibility-inquiry.pdf
We were excited when this letter was released - it showed that we might be able to start the #MyScienceInquiry with important data to frame questions like "who is underrepresented?" and thus how can we target evidence based interventions. https://www.tigerinstemm.org/news/pr_msi_20190912
It took a bit of time - but eventually @UKRI_News responded - we are a bit disappointed with the data as presented - but there are some immediate trends and issues that we can see coming to light https://www.tigerinstemm.org/news/pr_ukri_20191105
A friendly text scan of the letter responding to Norman Lamb's request by @UKRI_News has been kindly provided here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18hMHKhZX5UIM9RKNvHj55G2iNH0QJDIV/view
One of the immediate issues from this data we can see, and it's kicked off a national narrative within this space, is the massive disparity of between success rates for funding awards of BAME and white academics https://www.newscientist.com/article/2222994-ethnic-minority-academics-get-less-uk-research-funding/
As a result of the inquiry process, a few of our members met with @EPSRC & discussed themes emerging from the data - it was a frank discussion, with echos in the room of "where we are isn't great, but lets work together to improve things" https://twitter.com/EPSRC/status/1194171298076905473
Along the way - we have had some excellent meetings (by accident, and on purpose) of the TIGERS - we have an internal ~rule that if TIGERS meet up, we take selfies & share amongst the group. They're not for me to share here - but help us build camaraderie and mutual support.
One of the most important of these photos was the big kick off meeting, where we worked on #MyScienceInquiry, as well as collectively discussed the future of our group (and elected people to help run things)
You can see a photo from this in our header picture
You can see a photo from this in our header picture
Along the way in this story, we've also been trying to work out how we can help other people. We have been supporting other groups (who contact us via email or DM). We also capture resources on EDI&A - and this treasure trove is in the public domain
https://www.tigerinstemm.org/resources
https://www.tigerinstemm.org/resources
There's a tonne of other work we've been doing - both as a group, and as individuals empowered by the group - which is pretty fab for just one year of being here.
Time for me to bring this thread to a close - need to get back to the day job.
Time for me to bring this thread to a close - need to get back to the day job.
Hopefully this gives you a flavour of why we might be pleased to be here, one year later.
Happy Birthday to us.
Lets look forward to on journey forward, there's so more much for us to explore and engage with!
[GIF - Tiger emerging from flames]
Happy Birthday to us.
Lets look forward to on journey forward, there's so more much for us to explore and engage with!
[GIF - Tiger emerging from flames]
In case you missed it... on this day - 13 November 2018: https://twitter.com/ProfRachelGaN/status/1062488373246550017
