Driving equity and inclusion through research
In 2022, our Trust launched a pioneering group to champion equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in clinical research delivery. This aligns with our broader commitment to becoming an anti-racist and anti-discriminatory organisation. In this blog Scott Mullaney, divisional research manager for medicine & integrated care, and Louise Young, lead research nurse for neurosciences, touch on the group's workstreams, achievements, and aspirations.
Tell us about the EDI Research Champions Group.
Scott: The group was established in September 2022 to provide strategic direction and leadership for EDI-focused projects and initiatives in clinical research delivery. It was born out of the Trust’s wider work to become truly fair and inclusive, and influenced by the EDI initiatives being coordinated by the NIHR North West Regional Research Delivery Network, now known as the North London Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN), which supports researchers to conduct more research and recruit more participants to studies.
Led by Dr Helen Jones, our lead nurse for the clinical research workforce, the group includes over 30 members who meet bi-monthly to review progress across three core workstreams:
- Raising awareness of EDI
- EDI and research participation
- EDI and the clinical research workforce.
The first workstream involves increasing the visibility of research happening across the Trust and in collaboration with our partners and opportunities for staff and patients to get involved in research.
The second workstream focuses on creating equitable opportunities for people to participate in research and looking at the demographics of the participants we recruit for studies to see if they reflect our local population. We also gather examples of good EDI practice from across the Trust and adapt them for our own ways of working and incorporate EDI training into our onboarding framework to empower new staff to become EDI champions within the delivery of research in their roles.
The third workstream addresses workforce diversity, ensuring our research delivery teams represent the communities we serve. This includes leveraging data from the staff satisfaction survey for research staff to guide improvements and advancing existing inclusive recruitment practices.
Louise: Building on Scott’s last point, we have expanded the Trust’s inclusive recruitment approach in regard to our clinical research workforce.
Since 2021, Trust staff hiring for roles at band 7 and above have been required to follow an inclusive recruitment policy to help increase diversity in leadership. This has included a diverse interview panel for every interview – with gender and Black, Asian and Global Majority representation – and writing a ‘Dear Tim’ outcome letter to the chief executive providing details of their shortlisted candidates and the rationale for the hiring decision.
We have extended this so that we have diverse interview panels for every band, and we recruit panellists outside of our research group if more representation is needed.
Louise Young
"Diversity in research is crucial. If we fail to provide equitable opportunities for staff, patients and our local population, we risk excluding voices and undoing the progress we have made so far."
Have you shared this work more widely outside of the Trust?
Louise: In October 2024, we had the privilege of presenting on the group at the International Association of Clinical Research Nurses conference in Washington, DC.
We discovered that our efforts are ahead of many other organisations globally, which is something we should all take pride in. We also took away key learnings that we can explore in our own work and established a connection with a colleague in Taiwan to exchange best practice beyond EDI. The conference confirmed the importance of maintaining global ties as we refine and expand our workstreams going forward.
Scott: Following the conference, Dr Helen Jones submitted a proposal for us to present at the Research and Development Forum Conference in Manchester in May 2025. Our goal is to set a benchmark for EDI in research, both locally and internationally.
What have been some of the successes of the group so far?
Scott: One success has been identifying gaps in how we capture the demographics of our research participants. For example, the group realised that for participants who do not identify as Caucasian, the ethnicity data on our internal Cerner system automatically defaults to "not known" or "not stated". This suggests that this information is not being asked by staff at intake, and this limits our ability to analyse if our research reflects and meets the needs of our local population. We are now working to educate staff on the importance of accurate data collection around ethnicity going forward.
Louise: We have also identified the need to standardise practices across clinical research delivery teams at the Trust. One common barrier to participants taking part in research is language barriers and the approach from team to team to involve these participants varies.
We can remove these barriers by making use of our internal interpreting and translation services, which include face-to-face interpreters and the ability to create translated information sheets.
Different specialties encounter varying linguistic needs, so standardising practices such as using these services is essential. For example, the most popular languages spoken by our patients after English are Gujarati and Arabic, however, in Trauma it is Arabic followed by Polish. The group is now working to bridge these gaps and encourage staff from different teams and specialisms to become EDI research champions.
Are there any other messages you want to share?
Scott: Professor Mary Wells also runs our Research Champions Group which aims to engage staff to become research champions within their individual areas.
Research is sometimes seen as an add on to the clinical remit rather than a partner that walks side by side and we want to be known as an active research Trust. We need to change the way research is viewed internally and this additional group is key to this.
Louise: I’d like to end by saying that diversity in research is crucial. If we fail to provide equitable opportunities for staff, patients and our local population, we risk excluding voices and undoing the progress we have made so far.
