Making Environmental Science Equal, Diverse and Inclusive Call Launched by NERC

Support is available for environmental scientists in UK research institutions to explore and improve equality, diversity and inclusion within their discipline.

The new Making Environmental Science Equal, Diverse and Inclusive Call is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and seeks to improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within environmental science.

Funding will be given to organisations and consortia to explore and improve EDI within their environmental science disciplines, which will lead to greater diversity in environmental sciences. There is a requirement for successful projects to focus on diversity throughout the lifecycle of research and innovation. The objectives of the scheme are to:

  • Tackle the specific EDI challenges facing an academic team or department or a discipline in a wider sense.
  • Test, verify and further define effective approaches to improve EDI within their specified remit.
  • Bring together academics to raise awareness of the opportunities for increasing diversity within the environmental sciences.
  • Provide new evidence for the improvement of EDI within disciplines in the form of written case studies and for award holders to participate at a NERC organised knowledge exchange virtual event by October 2022.

NERC is keen for applicants to seek, where appropriate, pedagogic experts (such as those with expertise in creating effective learning environments) and EDI experts (from inside and outside academia if appropriate) to co-create activities and co-generate new knowledge together.

Applicants must be employed by eligible UK research institutions (ie UK higher education institutions, research council institutes (RCIs), independent research organisations (IROs) and public sector research establishments (PSREs) approved by NERC).

The total call budget is £600,000. Funding of £50,000 to £100,000 (at 100% full economic cost) is available for up to six months. Projects must start no later than 1 December 2021 and must be completed by 31 May 2022. The proposal can include funding requests for EDI experts who are not based at eligible organisations. However, NERC would not expect the funding for the collective subcontracting costs for EDI experts to be more than 25% of the awarded funding.

Applications must be submitted by the deadline of 11 October 2021 (16:00).

(This report was the subject of a RESEARCHconnect Newsflash.)