A New Year and a new start to our FMS EDI blog! Having launched it last year, we became consumed by preparing our first Faculty Athena SWAN application, due for submission in April 2018 (more about that in another post). But now we have analysed most of our data, have sections in draft form, and are starting to have conversations about the colour schemes of the graphs, we can return to some of our other projects.

One of our aims for this year is to increase communications around our work in equality, diversity and inclusion, and we think that the blog is a great way to get the word out, and allow more staff and students to see how to get involved. Over the coming months, we want to tell you more about we’re up to and what we’re working on, and what it is we’re trying to change about our working practices and cultures across the Faculty to become more inclusive. We will also be sharing our experiences and perspectives on issues that affect us and drive our work. We want to tell you more about why our EDI work is important for the Faculty, and how it benefits all of us. If you keep an eye on our blog this year, you’ll find out why we do what we do, and why it matters to our staff and students.

We also want to use the blog to highlight and support our own staff and students. This might be through increasing the visibility of role models, celebrating successes around equality and diversity issues, or it might be highlighting schemes, activities or networks that you might want to be involved with. We want to use it to review our events – maybe if you missed out, you’d like to come along next time!

Finally, we want to use the blog as a way of starting conversations, both within the Faculty, and beyond. We need conversations with our staff and students to learn about what we are doing well, and where we can work to improve things. We also need conversations with other EDI teams across the University, to help us see where we can link up and work together, and what good practices we can readily share. We also want to talk with other EDI teams across the sector – we want to tell you about what works for us, but also what we struggle with – it would be great if you could help! And we hope to reach beyond the sector – there is so much to learn from the private sector about equality and inclusion in the workplace, and we hope that our blog can help us link up.

We will be tweeting about our blogs @FMSDiversityNCL so why not follow us and keep in touch? And if you have an idea for a post, contact us: FMS.Diversity@ncl.ac.uk