About the project
We know that in the resource-strapped world of startups, every minute and every penny counts. This means that, for many, the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) are often overlooked and deprioritised. Effective EDI practices can be directly linked to commercial success. It ensures effective talent sourcing, employee wellbeing and retention as well as greater problem-solving abilities within the team. These are all central to ensuring prosperity for engineering startups and scaleups.
Startups and scaleups are the backbone of the UK economy and will be critical to build back better and levelling up agendas. Research has shown that existing EDI tools aren’t adequately tailored to startups and scaleups, and there is a demand for support from this under-served community.
The platform directly supports startups and scaleups to embed and implement D&I best practice. It is a powerful tool to address EDI challenges, futureproof organisations, support employee behaviour development, and measure behaviour change within an organisation. In the early stages of development, the platform will be continually shaped according to users’ feedback, including successful case studies. It will grow with the startup as a long-term partner, tailored to organisations’ day-to-day inclusion needs.
We see a future in which the brightest and most economically successful startups are those that hold EDI values central to their key business goals.
Diversity & Inclusion
Discover the Academy's latest research and resources for diversity and inclusion across engineering.
assess the landscape and research what makes an impactful EDI platform
develop and refine a prototype platform
test the EDI Platform with a small group of hub member enterprises
increase the number of companies, expand EDI support, refine platform through regular feedback
Aims and timeline
We aim to provide time-poor, growth-focused startups and scaleups with an accessible online platform to implement EDI best practice from the ground up.
Three priority areas guide our process:
- Develop and implement a means-tested platform.
- Create enriched EDI content tailored to your needs.
- Measure impact.
We launched a six-month pilot of the platform in December 2022. In this first phase, a group of early adopters, made up of 20 to 30 Enterprise Hub members startups and scaleups, are helping us test, grow and refine the platform.
Feedback gathered during the pilot will be used in the second phase to grow the platform following its launch in spring 2023.
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