Equality, Diversity & Inclusion

Creating a safe, supportive and inclusive environment where all our people have the opportunity to contribute and fulfil their potential is a guiding principle of the Franklin. With diversity of lived experience, culture, skills, experience and backgrounds our people unite around their love of science.

We are part of the ENEI employer network which helps support us with identifying gaps in our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion practices and building a plan to address these. 

We are continually looking to best practice to help guide our approaches. For example:

• Our studentship programme has an anonymised application process, to encourage diverse applications from under-represented groups.
• Our stipeds for our PhD programme are enhanced to attract a wide range of candidates form different socio-economic backgrounds, and/or career stages.
• A Pay Policy & advertising salaries for roles.
• Annual performance and pay reviews based on contribution during the year.
• We build and develop our policies and procedures to be welcoming and accommodating, offering enhanced maternity and paternity leave and a more flexible approach to working, with paid time off to manage emergencies.
• Our site is part of the Harwell Campus which has a variety of specialist interest groups and support networks which are open to all.
• We work hard to ensure our shortlist and interview panels will never be single gender.
• We advertise our roles across multiple platforms including those specialising in reaching a more diverse candidate base.
• For the past 3 years we have taken part in the national Black Interns initiative, successfully recruiting one of our participants into a role.
• Our Labs to Leaders Leadership development programme teaches our people managers about their role in creating an inclusive culture, the importance of feedback and managing well with emotional intelligence.
• Career coaching is available to all and individual coaching arrangements to target specific skills development.

This year we are establishing a specialist working group to focus around ED&I and continue to enhance our practices.  Building greater diversity at senior levels and raising awareness around neurodiversity.