Our EDI Surveys: taking action
News, Mar 31 2026
Every year the Society shares a survey with our community to better understand their needs and priorities. This year, our sixth annual survey, ‘Shaping a more equitable Society’, is open for responses and we’re keen to hear where you’d like to see our EDI focus next year.
Your voices continually guide our work and insights from the survey drive real progress within the Society. The results from the 2025 survey feedback centered around 3 main themes. These are listed below and we’re delighted to share an update on our progress in each of these areas.
A focus on support for carers in STEM
Work on this theme included:
- undertaking the ‘Family Friendly Workplace’ review, and scoring highly across all categories for staff support and leadership
- introducing long term leave for caring, sickness or maternity/paternity commitments for all Trustees and committee roles
- running a 6-month communications campaign highlighting Leading Women in STEM
Address attitudinal barriers towards LGTBQ+ groups
We continue to address this theme by:
- commissioning an editorial piece from our community on attitudes within academia
- inviting LGBTQ+ organisations to join our EDI Community to actively broaden representation
- considering organisational memberships of LGBTQ+ STEM organisations
Diverse representation on our committees and public platforms
Our previous work in this area and into the future includes:
- our work with the Afro Caribbean Commercial Science Network to undertake a review of our committee nomination and appointment process, with changes being implemented in 2026
- planning to introduce a Trustee shadowing scheme in 2026 to open opportunities and support succession planning
- running a communications campaign highlighting our Society Ambassadors in 2026
Our commitment to EDI doesn’t stop here, and we will continue to make improvements into 2026 and beyond. Our next survey is open until 8 April, and we encourage you to complete this to help provide insights and feedback on our work. You can also discover more about our commitment to EDI and previous projects on our EDI survey page.
