RECIPES Diversity and Culture of Inclusion Statement
Diversity is at the core of our mission to transform our food system to be more sustainable,equitable, and resilient through convergent research and education, and by collaborating withcommunities and stakeholders. A diverse network is imperative for scientific success andshapes the quality of insights that emerge from our work. We recognize and acknowledge thepower dynamics within and outside our network with regard to race, class, gender identity,sexuality, disability, academic position, national origin, and historically under-representedcommunities within the area of sustainability research. To this end, our network has thefollowing ambition, goals, targets, and processes.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
iN THE nETWORK
Increase the power, representation, and participation of students, researchers, and staff who reflect the diversity of global society but who have been historically underrepresented in sustainability research.
- Recruit research assistants, staff, and faculty through holistic methods of assessment who are as diverse as possible and/or are drawn from a diverse pool of applicants as outlined in our processes below.
- Catalyze a cohort of students, staff, and researchers who can succeed together in the field of sustainability.
- Mentor and provide a pathway for more diverse members in the governance and leadership of the network.
- Sustain the current cohort of diverse sustainability researchers throughmentorship and support.
Cultivate a research culture through our design process that encourages open, fair, and transparent communication and the setting of expectations, as well as practices of collaboration, flexibility, support and encouragement.
- Provide opportunities and resources for network members to learn about diversity and inclusion principles and approaches.
- Develop processes that promote an open sharing of ideas and perspectives.
- Implement community norms through guiding principles collectively agreed on by the network.
- Model behaviors and norms that can be replicated in academic and professional settings.
- Normalizing actions and behaviors that promote diversity and a culture of inclusion.
- Pay attention to how small markers (e.g., titles, names, institutions, positions) may lead to assumptions and try to eliminate that.
iN THE cOMMUNITY
Increase the power, representation, and participation of practitioners and all community partners who reflect the diversity of global society but who have been historically underrepresented in sustainability research.
- Engage with a variety of community research partners to ensure the representation of the broadest opinions.
Co-create mutually beneficial processes that tackle the extractive history of research that academics have performed with communities and instead strengthen community benefits from our research, while building the capacity of our community partners.
- Develop replicable frameworks and processes, e.g. memorandums of understanding, that foster mutually beneficial relationships
- Promote inclusion from the beginning of our process of engaging with communities
- Develop accessible communication and engagement mechanisms that are beneficial for all
METRICS
iN THE nETWORK
Develop quantitative and qualitative measures for belonging and inclusion in the network. This includes qualitative questionnaires that ask about experiences in the network as well as self-reporting statistics on race, gender, disability, and of our network members, including breakdown by faculty, postdoctoral fellows, staff, and students.
Develop qualitative and quantitative connectedness and collaboration on projects to measure if scholars are collaborating with diverse scholars and institutions.
Monitor to improve the diversity of project, cluster, and network leadership.
Monitor to improve diversity and equity of participants and institutions in products that come out of the network, including publications and new grants.
In the Community
Recruit, engage, and empower external stakeholders through network activities
- Up to five Black scholars each year via the Academic Research and Leadership Network and Black in Engineering community to be a part of our network
- Up to five Deaf and Hard of Hearing students for lab placements in partner institutions
- Finding formal funding with at least one other outside group with up to five members that we can reach out to and obtain funding to engage
- Measure the diversity of communities and organizations that the network engages with
Measure our outreach to more communities beyond academia and deliberate engagement with under-represented communities in academia
Create a formal process for just equitable and just engagement with communities that
promotes mutuality between community prosperity and research objectives.
Processes
IN THE NETWORK
- Engage faculty in work that aligns with Promotion & Tenure expectations at their home institutions and allow them to engage in opportunities that add value.
- Develop a process to provide support for network researchers through co-development of support mechanisms, such letters from the network and evidence of convergent research.
- Provide resources that build upon institutional resources that provide guidance for the recruitment, selection, retention, and mentorship for students and postdoctoral fellows to enable them to achieve their goals and advance their careers.
- Document mentorship and provide credit for mentors.
- Make resources available to network members to use inclusive language in informal communications within the team and external communications and products to the broader community. Guidance provided for communication should be sensory neutral.
- Educate ourselves to communicate more understandable and write in ways so that all internal and external communications are accessible.
- Organize and participate in yearly training that builds new ideas to ensure goals of diversity and inclusion are met.
- Make all network team meetings and events fully accessible and include funding for note-takers, real-time captionists, and interpreters as well as supporting other accessibility needs as requested for meetings and events that are part of the network.
- Advertise inclusive/access initiatives undertaken to be helpful to the entire group and not just to accommodate any particular group or individual.
- A process for feedback and anonymous feedback with a direct plan of action to improve issues undertaken by Network Coordination Team publicly and transparently.
- Document all feedback received and issues raised.
IN THE COMMUNITY
- Respectfully engage communities in co-creating research through data and outcomes ownership, participation in the beginning of and throughout the research process in agreed-upon ways, and providing monetary and non-monetary compensation and partnerships that benefit them.
- Provide transparent process for monetary and non-monetary compensation as a standard and allow people to opt-out rather than asking them to opt-in.
- Provide a process for community groups to push back to research activities with the network.
- Keep a repository of IRB Protocols and MOUs as they develop.
- Create a proactive process to understand community needs from research and design the research to fulfill needs as much as possible.
- Conduct internal annual reviews of each research project to identify opportunities for shaping the work to meet equity goals, not only in terms of process, but also in the ways research questions are asked.
Contact
For any questions, concerns, and positive feedback with diversity, equity, and inclusion,
please reach out to any member of the network coordination team. If it’s something you do
not want to email, you may also use this anonymous feedback form. It will not collect your name or email, but you are welcome to include that information if you’re comfortable.
Here are the administrative contacts at each institution.
EXTERNAL RESOURCES
Here are links to diversity statements, land acknowledgements, and disability/access office links for each participating institution in the network.