Every year the Society shares an EDI survey with our community to better understand their needs and priorities and where they would like to see our EDI focus.

The results from our 2024 survey feedback centred around five main themes. These themes are listed below, and we’re delighted to share an update on our progress in each of these areas.

Engagement with young people from underrepresented groups and promotion of access to STEM

• We have taken action to develop collaborative partnerships with external organisations working in this space including the Afro-Caribbean Commercial Science Network (ACCSN) and BioSci Toolkit
• Our partnership with ACCSN led to a joint webinar in April 2025 titled ‘Bridging gaps for underrepresented young minds’
• Our work with In2Science has continued to fund summer placements, and event attendees can donate to this organisation at the point of registration
• We continue to work with City, University of London to host a Micro-placement student over the summer

Support for women and underrepresented groups in accessing more senior roles

• We initiated a new collaborative partnership with the Daphne Jackson Trust to cross-promote resources and opportunities, including for those who have taken a career break
• Over the summer months of 2025 we will be conducting interviews to develop engaging content that highlights women in science, including non-traditional career paths and careers for those with caring responsibilities

Ensuring diversity amongst our Trustees and leaders

• We extended our anonymised nominations process to include all Editorial Board recruitment from February 2025
• We have investigated potential opportunities for a Trustee mentoring scheme, which we aim to deliver in 2026

Improve support and accessibility for people with disabilities

• In 2024 we developed an EDI in Society events statement, which clearly defines what this means to us and how we deliver this for our community
• We have brought together a project group to consider website accessibility, with on-going streams to make improvements to our current processes

Support for mid-career professionals

• We are investigating the development of coaching and resources we can make available, while potentially engaging our Emeritus community to support in this area

Our commitment to EDI does not stop here, and we will continue to make improvements in this area into 2025 and beyond. Our next EDI Data Survey will commence in Spring 2025 and we hope our community will respond to help guide our focus for the following 12 months.

Discover more about our EDI work