Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE)
SoGE inclusion statement
"As a school and a community, we want to go beyond messages of inclusivity and support; embedding principles of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in everything that we do. The work to tackle societal inequalities and their impacts is ongoing, and we want people of all races, genders, ethnicities, religions, disabilities and sexual orientations to be welcomed, respected and supported." – SoGE statement of inclusion
Our EDI story so far
The School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) aims to be a fair, friendly and supportive environment in which a diverse group of people excel in their work and study. To achieve this, all staff and students are encouraged to develop and maintain the very highest levels of integrity, trust, respect and responsibility. Embedding Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in our culture is vital to creating an inclusive working and learning environment in which the rights and dignity of our staff and students is respected.
EDI is a collective responsibility – as a community, it is up to us to ensure that we create an environment that is welcoming, inclusive and celebrates the diversity necessary to thrive.
Our formal EDI journey started in 2016, when we submitted our Athena Swan bronze application. In 2021, we became the first department in the Social Sciences Division to receive an Silver Athena Swan award, and are particularly proud of this achievement. Our Self-Assessment team became the EDI Committee in 2017 after we received our Bronze award.
What started out as the Athena Swan Self-Assessment team, became the EDI committee once we received our bronze award in 2017. It was also at this time that our Athena Swan officer became the EDI Officer (now the EDI Manager). This allowed us to take broaden the scope of EDI work at SoGE beyond gender and to take a more intersectional approach.
The term intersectionality was coined by professor Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 how characteristics such as race, gender, class and others overlap and connect – in other words how they intersect (hence intersectionality) with each other. While the concept has, as Crenshaw says, "travelled beyond the context and the content" [law] it is a vital lens needed when working towards a more inclusive and egalitarian culture.
Intersectionality asks us to think about multiple truths at once and adds nuance and depth to our understanding of oppression. While all women will experience oppression based on their gender, this oppression can be further compounded by their sexual orientation, their health, their skin colour, their class etc. All of these things impact how we experience the world and how we are treated. To only address one element (i.e. gender) is to run the risk that we replicate existing hierarchies and continue to leave people behind. In taking a more intersectional approach to EDI, the school is able to think about other factors such as class, sexual orientation, disability and race.
Anti-racism is an ongoing and active process, and the School of Geography and the Environment is opposed to racism in all its forms. Following the murder of George Floyd and the often-shameful role that the discipline of Geography has played in imperial and colonial projects; the need to further decolonise our curricula; and the need to reiterate our commitment to racial justice we established the anti-racism working group. In 2023 the working group become our Anti-Racism Forum to build in institutional accountability. We are made up of staff and students from across the School and have a wide-ranging action plan.
Athena Swan
The Athena Swan Charter was established in 2005 to promote career advancement for women employed in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) in higher education and research. In 2015 the Charter was extended to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law. On 30 June 2021 Advance HE delivered the transformed Athena Swan charter framework which, amongst other changes, asks institutions to understand and address intersectional inequalities. As a department we are proud of our Athena Swan Silver award and although it was made under the previous framework, we look forward to incorporating an intersectional approach into our plan.
Our Athena Swan submission included a detailed 5 year action plan to help us address the School’s main Equality and Diversity challenges. We outlined three main priorities:
- Having increased the number of women researchers and academics at relatively early career stages, enable them to step into more senior leadership roles;
- Improve career development support for our large proportion of female fixed-term research staff, who move less often than their male peers into permanent academic jobs;
- Improve the career progression of female professional and support staff, many of whom report feeling 'stuck' in lower grade roles.
Action plan – accessible version (Forthcoming)
The School's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee oversees the implementation of our Athena Swan actions, aimed at making the School an even better place in which to work and study. Some of our achievements to date include:
Key progress so far includes:
- The appointment of three EDI Advocates to help further EDI at SoGE
- Moving our mentoring scheme GEMS to MentorNet
- Collaborating with professionals across the university to produce events such as Neurodiversity in the Workplace: Challenges and Opportunities
- Offer annual professional development reviews to all SoGE staff
- Piloting roleplay-based workshops aimed at understanding and addressing bullying and harassment through cultural shift and empathy
- Taster EDI sessions to reach more individuals
- Creation of the Anti-Racism Working Group
- Production of our inclusive conferences guide
Future plans and focuses:
- Improved induction process, with options for online inductions
- To pilot workshops on delivering inclusive events
- Events on career progression for both academic and support staff; acknowledging that progression looks different to everyone
- Taster EDI sessions leading into longer more in-depth training
- An increasingly intersectional understanding and approach to EDI
Race Equality
The School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) is opposed to racism in all its forms, and we are actively working to increase the diversity and inclusivity of our practices and the diversity of our people. We are aware of the often shameful role that the discipline of Geography has played in imperial and colonial projects; of the need to further decolonise our curricula; and of the need to reiterate our commitment to racial justice. The School has established an anti-racism working group, drawn from across our staff and postgraduate student communities, which has drawn up a wide-ranging action plan that we have begun to implement.
Progress so far includes:
- Producing a report of activities in colleges, departments and other universities to attract a greater diversity of undergraduate students, with a view to implementing best practice in SoGE from 2021/22.
- Recruitment of an Access and Outreach Officer in 2021, to help the School increase both the ethnic and socio-economic diversity of its undergraduate intake.
- Review of existing work on diversifying and decolonising the curriculum in SoGE, sharing best practice and linking with the University-wide diversifying and decolonising the curriculum project.
- Producing a Code of Conduct for field researchers, to ensure that local stakeholders and collaborators are treated fairly.
- Drafting a guide for supervisors, led by the postgraduate student anti-racism Collective, to improve supervisor awareness of the challenges faced by BAME students and those from outside Oxford.
- Working with the central university team to prepare a guide to inclusive communications, to ensure that SoGE's internal and external communications represent the diversity of people who work and study at the School, and use respectful and inclusive language.
Statement from the School's Anti-Racism Working Group on the statue of Cecil Rhodes
Members of the Anti-Racism Working Group of the School of Geography and the Environment welcome the recommendation of the independent commission of inquiry, set up by Oriel College, to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from the highest plinth on the High Street in Oxford. Cecil Rhodes was a very controversial figure during his lifetime. There was a movement to prevent a statue of him being raised after his death. And it is a source of shame that he is still being honoured in the city of Oxford more than two decades into the twenty first century. Removing the statue from its plinth would only be a small step, but a step in the right direction.
EDI Initiatives
Inclusive Conference Guide
The School of Geography and the Environment is committed to enhancing diversity and promoting equality of opportunity amongst all our staff and students. As part of this commitment, one of our priorities is to promote greater inclusivity at the conferences and events we organise. We want to ensure that our events showcase the diversity of researchers working in our field as well as allowing people of all backgrounds and career stages to participate and feel included, in both the more formal panel sessions and the socialising and networking opportunities.
We have put together a practical guide for event organisers (PDF: 3.29MB), drawing on examples of best practice from across the university sector and beyond, and responses to our own online survey of more than 230 people working in higher education and the wider public, private and third sectors in 2018/19.
The guide is wide-ranging in its coverage, incorporating sections on pre-event logistics; programme development and speaker selection; encouraging inclusive participation in Q&A sessions and networking events; representing diversity in conference communications; as well as how to prevent and deal with harassment and discrimination during the event and how to support the needs of those with caring responsibilities.
We hope that this guide will serve as an accessible step-by-step tool to assist organisers of other events, large and small, in promoting diversity of attendance and inclusivity of participation.
EDI Advocates
Often EDI work can go unrecognised or fall disproportionately to marginalised demographics. Adequately resourcing EDI work is vital to ensure that initiatives drive institutional and cultural change. When the EDI committee decided to run a departmental version of the MPLS EDI fellows scheme, the idea was to enable individuals from across our community to get more involved in the work that we do.
Who was eligible?
Academic staff (including postdocs), DPhil students and Professional Service staff members who have experience, knowledge and interest in racial justice, mental health, LGBT+ Equality, disability and/or intersectionality to apply.
Our EDI Advocates
Following the application process and due to the strength and breadth of the proposals received, the panel decided to appoint three people to the position of EDI Advocate. Congratulations to:
I am a social scientist in the REACH water research programme, and I spend a lot of time collecting data in Ethiopia. I wanted to become an EDI advocate because I am passionate about improving welfare in research fieldwork through connection, experience sharing and awareness building.
Mental Health in Research Fieldwork
In general, mental health and emotional well-being in research fieldwork is insufficiently supported, though many fieldworkers have experienced challenges due to the emotional burden, trauma and/or burnout related to intense fieldwork.
SoGE is a fieldwork-heavy department. There is a need for SoGE guidance and better training/signposting to protect fieldworkers’ mental health by (among others) dealing with potential discrimination or harassment in the field, including based on sexual orientation, gender, race, disability and other intersectional identities.
I want this project to build on the work I have been doing and shift the department culture, strategies and policies to better train and support field researchers in protecting mental health, particularly those at an early career stage.
I am a Research Associate in Transport and Energy Innovation at the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) and Environmental Change Institute (ECI). I wanted to become an EDI advocate to answer questions I had about the role of men in gender equality. It will not happen accidentally and needs a shift in culture – which will not happen without engaging men in this work.
Your Best Ally
The project will focus on two main points; barriers that hinder women’s ability to progress to senior positions as perceived/understood by SoGE’s staffs and students; and, how male staff can be allies in the workplace. The project comprises four different activities that involve all genders, students and staffs, featuring fun, volunteer participation, anonymity, and leaving a tangible impact through active individual and group engagement.
I want this project to be a collaborative effort in our community and to allow us to explore effective allyship.
The experience of growing up in South Africa opened my eyes to injustice so I have been interested in/ working on related issues all my life. Within CREDS, in my current role as Knowledge Exchange Manager (Research), I’ve played an instrumental role in bringing EDI to the forefront of what we do/ how we identify ourselves, and that has been really rewarding. As an EDI advocate I have an opportunity to do something similar in SoGE.
The EDI Cube – a tool to embed EDI during project development
I will develop a tool that will help people writing project proposals to include EDI in their projects and then run a couple of workshops (two, or possibly three) to test, gain support for and then disseminate the tool. It might also be able to be used in teaching.
The tool (at the moment called the ‘EDI Cube’ and developed in a draft form) would help people think about three ‘dimensions’ of EDI: 1) The nine protected characteristics, 2) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, and 3) who is involved in their project, how they will run the project (making sure their processes are inclusive) and what they will work on.
The tool has already been partially tested in a teaching environment where it can be facilitated. This project aims to create a resource that can stand alone and help grant applicants think about EDI in relation to their projects.
GEMS on MentorNet
In September 2017 the department launched a new mentoring scheme, open to all staff and DPhil students. The Geography and the Environment Mentoring Scheme - known as 'GEMS' - is open to any member of staff or DPhil student. It aims to help staff and students achieve personal and professional growth, with the support and guidance of a more experienced mentor. Mentees can take a fresh look at their career, skills and work-life balance, while mentors are able to give something back by helping other members of the School to succeed. As well as helping the individuals involved, mentoring can have wider benefits for the department. Staff who are more supported tend to be more motivated, more skilled and more successful. With mentors and mentees drawn from across the department, the School hopes to build an even more collegial and cohesive community of staff and students.
Due to the success of the scheme, in 2022 SoGE moved GEMS to MentorNet to better monitor and grow the program.
Contact us
We are always happy to discuss Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) at the School. Whether you would like to discuss EDI more broadly, learn more about Athena Swan or anything else EDI related, please get in touch with our EDI manager.
