Professor Ilaria Boncori appointed as equality expert by Research England

Professor Ilaria Boncori has been appointed to Research England's Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Expert Advisory Group. We caught up with her to find out more.

Congratulations, Ilaria! How did you come to be appointed to this role?

In June, I saw that the Research England website invited expressions of interest to join their newly created Research England EDI Expert Advisory Group. I knew the process would be competitive, but applying online was fairly straightforward.

What will the role involve?

I feel privileged to be part of this group as I join ten colleagues (from academic and professional services backgrounds) from universities across the UK to work with staff at Research England with the aim to provide expert advice on their EDI strategy and on the creation and implementation of their EDI action plan. This is a great opportunity to influence sector-wide priorities, practices and requirements around EDI, and to have the best possible impact on EDI for research councils, funding, universities, individual researchers, and our communities.

How have you been involved in EDI work at Essex?

I have always been passionate about equity, and my research focuses on EDI in organisations and processes of organising, especially in terms of gender, sexual orientation, foreignness and race. More recently, I have been investigating issues around inclusion with regards to pregnancy endings, which has also informed the re-writing of our University policies around miscarriage and fertility.

Working at Essex has allowed me to contribute to many EDI-focussed projects over the years, as we have a long commitment to EDI — for example, in 2017, I co-led with Karen Bush on a project to support LGBT+ inclusion in teaching and learning; and I later coordinated with Jo Andrews a project funded by Advance HE on race inclusivity in HE. I curated the University of Essex series of three edited volumes on inclusivity by staff and students (LGBT+ perspectives; Race, Ethnicity and Inclusion; Health and Wellbeing), and I have been supporting our submissions to Stonewall Top 100 employers, Athena SWAN, and the Race Equality Charter for several years, amongst other projects. I have been able to share some of our good practice, and learn from others through networks with other universities, for example via the OfS-funded project ‘Transitions and Transformations: The Black Researcher’s Journey’.

I hope that this new role in the new Research England EDI Expert Advisory Group will allow me to support EDI in research more broadly, and to promote EDI best practice in the sector.