In the world of research and evaluation, the principles of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) are not just ethical imperatives but also critical components that drive excellence and innovation.
Here’s why EDI matters:
Equality ensures that every researcher, participant, and community has access to the same opportunities and resources, which is fundamental for a fair research environment. It’s about providing space so that every voice is heard and levelling the playing field so that talent and potential can flourish without being hindered by systemic barriers.
Diversity brings together a wide range of perspectives, experiences, and skills, enriching the research process. Diverse research teams, including embedding lived experience, are more likely to challenge norms, think creatively, and discover novel solutions to complex problems. It allows for a broader spectrum of questions, insights and approaches. It’s about ensuring we design engagement and sampling with minoritised communities and intersectionality in mind, recognising and appreciating multiple perspectives and truths, and accepting this complexity.
Inclusion is about creating a research culture where everyone feels valued and able to contribute fully. It’s about being trauma informed and designing activities and approaches based on the principles of safety, choice, collaboration, empowerment and trust.
Our commitment:
At M·E·L Research we strongly believe in the importance of being socially responsible, and in embedding EDI in everything we do. We’re considerate and selective in the type of work we do and support. Our research often focusses on giving a voice to seldom heard and minoritised people and communities, or to supporting other organisations who do so.
Part of this is also about creating an inclusive place to work, with a diverse team, and a culture of openness, reflection and learning.
We are passionate about our work on EDI, but we are also realistic. We know this is an ongoing task. It’s not just a tick box exercise and we need to constantly be reflecting on where we are, and where we need to make progress.
We are committed to:
Working towards ensuring our staff is representative of the full diversity of our business locations, and to continually work to improve representation. We do not offer unpaid internships. We are working with the MRS Apprenticeship Scheme and have an apprentice. We pay the living wage and are accredited by the Living Wage Foundation. Many of our senior staff support university and school outreach programmes through careers talks and mentoring.
We are a majority women and ethnic minority owned company. However, we are not complacent, and we will continue to monitor the diversity of our leadership team.
Creating a safe and welcoming place and practice of work for all. As part of this we have a strong commitment to flexible working, we offer a 9-day fortnight, at full pay, without the use of condensed hours. We provide all staff with access to mental health support, including having 3 team members trained to be Mental Health first aiders, and we are committed to training all staff in mental health awareness (as at May 2024, 30+ of our team are Mental Health Aware).
Gathering and analysing pay statistics annually. And, where it is found, dismantle pay discrimination based on gender and ethnicity.
Continually working to design and conduct inclusive research projects that allow representation for all, ensuring:
- Active consideration of inclusive research designs and methodologies
- That we work in partnership, recognising the importance of community knowledge and, where feasible, we embed participatory methods
- Transparent communication of the sampling practice within our projects
