Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
The final chapter provides a summary of the previous chapters and concluding remarks. It looks back on the process of researching, collecting material and writing the book. The chapter offers final reflections about why equality, diversity and inclusion matter, and that much can be achieved by drawing from experiences of equality interventions from various disciplines and research fields. It considers inevitable aspects of EDI work, such as resistance to change, and reflects on how to embark on any programmes of institutional change in research organisations.
This chapter defines and discusses key concepts and terminology relating to health and biomedical research, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), disability, neurodiversity, race and ethnicity, sex and gender, and sexual orientation. These terms evolve, are debated, and can be the subject of much contestation. The chapter will acknowledge additional categories of diversity that might be impacting on researchers’ careers, and the concept of intersectionality will be introduced. Concepts that are introduced will be referred to and revisited in subsequent chapters.
This chapter defines and discusses key concepts and terminology relating to health and biomedical research, equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), disability, neurodiversity, race and ethnicity, sex and gender, and sexual orientation. These terms evolve, are debated, and can be the subject of much contestation. The chapter will acknowledge additional categories of diversity that might be impacting on researchers’ careers, and the concept of intersectionality will be introduced. Concepts that are introduced will be referred to and revisited in subsequent chapters.
This chapter describes interventions to support individuals and research communities in their pursuit of careers and professional development as researchers. Avoiding the deficit model, Chapter 5 focuses on how change and equality agents within organisations can put measures in place that make a difference to individuals constrained by the legacy of wider social forces that (re)produce inequalities. In Chapter 4, evidence about the lived experience of inequality and marginalisation was included to sensitise readers to potential challenges and barriers that individuals may face. This lays the foundations for interventions presented here and in Chapter 6, in which quotations from interview participants give depth and voice.
This chapter focuses on organisational and system-based approaches to change. In Chapter 5, approaches that focus on nurturing EDI at individual and community levels were explored. This chapter presents strategies and interventions that can enable or hinder change at systems and organisational levels. As in the previous chapter, quotations from interview participants are included here for depth and to give voice to people’s experiences of working within research organisations.
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Today’s academic and research institutions recognise the importance of diverse research teams in health and biomedical science, in terms of the business case, social justice and the common good.
This ‘go-to’ book familiarises readers with the key equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) issues in relation to research careers and researcher development. Bringing together the challenges and solutions to EDI matters with an evidence-based approach in one volume, the book offers practical strategies and interventions for academic and research settings.
This is an essential guide for equality planning team members, researchers, HRM officers and managers across academia and research.
In Chapter 3, we discussed how organisations rationalise and make sense of diversity and suggested how different rationales can be combined to create a compelling and sustainable case for diversity. This chapter outlines selected literature relating to the lived experiences of minoritised and disadvantaged groups of researchers and academics. In so doing, the chapter seeks to amplify those experiences that are often shared with such emotion and are key to understanding why EDI action is so vital and matters to individuals.
This chapter explores how organisations rationalise and make sense of diversity, specifically the rationales underpinning their actions. For example, EDI is increasingly supported through institutional strategies and visions, in which the diversity of staff populations in academic or research organisations is thought to indicate positive progression. This chapter explores the key reasons for the attention to EDI in organisations, often called the business case, and the social justice rationale, which are sometimes thought to work in opposition to one another. Woven through both approaches are glimpses of deeply embedded values within the research system, including the desire to achieve research quality or excellence. Bringing the business and social justice approaches through a focus on the common good together may prove a useful way forward. The chapter concludes with some of the responsibilities that UK research organisations have in relation to EDI.
