Equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are important principles for the Modern Slavery PEC, and we are committed to ensuring people with different experiences, backgrounds and expertise, have fair and equal access to opportunities the Centre provides. We aim to embed EDI across all our work, including our operations, the research we fund, networks we develop and participate in, and across all the activities we deliver.
This Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy and Action Plan sets out the ways in which we plan to implement improvements to EDI in practice. It focuses on four aims and describes the activities we have taken so far (which you can find in the full Action Plan below) and that we plan to undertake in these areas.
Aims and action plan:
Aim 1: Equitably including individuals and communities with lived experience and those who work closely with them in the Modern Slavery PEC’s work.
- We will continue to involve people with lived experience in our operations, including recruiting for a number of paid roles for people with lived experience, including a Lived Experience Manager and Lived Experience Coordinator. We will establish a Lived Experience Advisory Panel by the end of 2022 to help guide our work.
- We will further develop relationships with survivor engaged organisations and set up a working group to advise and guide the Modern Slavery PEC in areas of work that involve people with lived experience of modern slavery.
- We will continue embedding meaningful involvement of people with lived experience in the research we commission, including in scoping and developing our funding calls, application review and award processes. We will also require all future research project applications to clearly set out survivor involvement where appropriate, providing guidance to research teams on best practice where possible.
Aim 2: Improving diversity within the modern slavery research community, to effectively include all individuals, communities and organisations with an interest in and affected by modern slavery.
- We will provide opportunities to support diverse stakeholders to participate in the Modern Slavery PEC’s activities, including making more research funding available to NGOs, bringing together those from different sectors and disciplines, as well as Early Career Researchers.
- We will organise workshops for interested researchers, communities and organisations to make our funding opportunities more accessible.
- We will continue to promote the use of our research ideas form and email list to enable diverse groups and people working on modern slavery to share ideas and connect with others.
Aim 3: Undertaking research on EDI within the modern slavery research sector, to understand the challenges and make recommendations for improvements.
- We will invite applications for a responsive research project to generate more robust evidence about EDI in the modern slavery research sector, with findings published in early 2023. Future updates of this Action Plan will reflect project findings.
Aim 4: Embedding EDI in internal operations and governance across the Centre.
- We will continue to prioritise EDI in our recruitment processes and ways of working, in line with the British Institute of International and Comparative Law’s (BIICL, our parent organisation) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy.
- We will monitor and assess our progress and publish an annual update to this Action Plan in early 2023.
We will work closely with all our stakeholders, including people with lived experience, partner organisations, funded research teams, policymakers, businesses, community organisations and others who contribute to the Centre’s work to deliver these activities and embed EDI across everything we do, and learn from our experiences.
If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions on our Strategy and Action Plan, please contact our Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, Niki Kalyvides, at n.kalyvides@modernslaverypec.org.
