Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Statement

At the CRUK Scotland Institute, our vision is to build and maintain a diverse and inclusive culture based on our shared values that allows all our people to realise their full potential. These values (Innovate, Respect, Integrity, Teamwork and Excellence) underpin our behaviours and everything that we do, including in terms of equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Our strategic priorities for EDI at the Institute are closely aligned with those of Cancer Research UK, our main funder. For 2025-2030, these priorities are to:

Maintain an inclusive and diverse workforce

Led by the Head of People and Culture, our HR team will continue to monitor, analyse, share and publish our diversity data to learn and drive change. In September 2025, we launched an annual Employee Engagement Survey, which included questions about diversity and inclusion. We will also continue to review and embed EDI considerations into how we recruit, train, develop and promote staff. For example, in 2024 we participated in the CRUK Black Leaders in Cancer (BLiC) PhD programme for the first time and appointed 5 students with black heritage who started in October 2025. We are currently reviewing our postdoc career development training programme and will consider EDI as part of this, gathering opinions from a broad range of postdocs and postdoc advisors to understand the challenges.

Improve diversity and inclusion across our decision-making and leadership

Our EDI strategy is overseen and regularly review by our Senior Management Team and Board of Directors. These senior leaders are committed to ensuring EDI opportunities, risks and diverse perspectives are considered in key strategic decisions and business plans. This will involve seeking opinions from a broad range of individuals and groups from outside the leadership team as well as increasing its diversity.  We aim to achieve a minimum of 50% women in our top two pay grades by 2029 and increase the ethnic minority diversity in these top two grades. Furthermore, we will offer development opportunities that target future leaders from underrepresented groups.

Seek opportunities to address cancer inequalities in our work

Led by our Scientific Strategy Group (SSG), we will establish exemplar projects utilising our strengths to tackle cancer inequalities and engage with more researchers already working in the cancer inequalities space (through meetings, visits, etc.). For example, inviting researchers such as SAMBAI Cancer Grand Challenge lead, Professor Melissa Davis to visit and speak about their work. In the next 3 years, we will develop a reciprocal relationship with at least one external organisation to ensure we hear voices and experiences from communities currently less represented in our work. We will also engage with CRUK’s EDI in Research Strategy.

Engage with our people and wider community in ways that are inclusive and accessible

Led by out Head of Research Management, we will ensure accessibility best practices are built into our internal and external communications. We will consider EDI in our engagement and patient public involvement (PPI) activities, working closely with our PPI and Engagement colleagues. In addition, we will establish a process to provide travel and childcare support for those wishing to participate in conferences,

Our EDI actions for 2026/27

• Collect and collate data via our annual staff survey and HR portal
• Share data with our Senior Management Team, Board of Directors, CRUK and wider community via quarterly and annual reporting
• Achieve 80% engagement measure for all staff and consider any improvement targets following the annual survey
• Continue to participate in the BLiC and In2Research programmes
• Leadership to consider EDI in their planning and decision making
• Opinions on key issues to be sort via the staff and EDI forums
• Continue to ensure our interview panels and applicant shortlists are balanced
• Continue to offer flexible work patterns and maternity cover of up to 18 months
• Offer development opportunities for women and underrepresented groups, including coaching, mentoring, leadership and management training
• SSG to consider exemplar projects that tackle cancer inequalities
• Extend invitations to researchers working in the cancer inequalities space
• Invite CRUK to present its new EDI in Research Strategy to our researchers
• Ensure equal representation in our seminar series and scientific conferences
• Ensure our new website meets best practice in terms of accessibility
• Develop a travel and childcare support policy

Transparency, Evidence, and Improvement

Our aim is to monitor, analyse and publish diversity data to develop an evidence base to learn and drive change and improvement. We have achieved an 87% response rate from staff to our request for their personal data and we participate in a CRUK data collection exercise each year. We also compare our data to HESA (https://www.hesa.ac.uk/). This allows us to identify areas for improvement, for example in relation to gender equity at senior levels, and to take the appropriate actions.

EDI Awareness and Training

Our aim is to ensure that all staff and students understand their responsibilities with respect to EDI and are appropriately trained and engaged. This includes access to e-learning modules that include unconscious bias, bullying and harassment and EDI. We also run training courses for managers in unconscious bias.

We have conducted an EDI survey across the Institute. The results of the survey were very positive, with a 66% response rate and 78% of staff agreeing they are treated with respect and dignity and 70% having a sense of belonging to the Institute. There were some areas identified as requiring action, including equal opportunities to develop; staff feeling supported in speaking up; and staff wellbeing.

Career Support and Development

Our aim is to enable all researchers and support staff to reach their potential regardless or their gender, age, disability, ethnicity, sexual orientation or other protected characteristics.

Annually, we hold personal development reviews for all staff. This presents everyone with an opportunity to discuss their personal and career development with their manager. A training needs analysis (TNA) is then conducted by HR to review training requirements. During this process we also check that access to personal development is representative of our staff diversity data.

Equitable Recruitment Practices and Opportunities

We aim to ensure that all recruitment practices promote EDI not just in words but in actions.

Our actions include:

• Training all staff in unconscious bias
• Ensuring that recruitment advertising is not biased
• Advertising our policies on maternity pay, shared parental leave, visa applications, flexible and hybrid working
• Implementing a search committee for senior roles and aiming for a 50/50 gender split of applicants for senior research positions at the shortlist stage
• Ensuring gender balanced interview panels

Scientific Engagement

We recognise that making changes in career opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) starts at an early stage, and we are committed to engaging with other educational establishments, for example schools, to promote women and minorities towards a career in scientific research. We hold an annual event for school students and visit schools to meet with those from under-privileged backgrounds and under-represented groups to discuss access to scientific careers. We also aim to have a diverse range of speakers and hold lunches for speakers from under-represented groups that early career researchers and students can attend.

Our Policies

EDI is built into our policies:

• We offer enhanced maternity and adoption pay leave of 26 weeks full pay for qualifying employees
• We offer shared parental leave and 6 weeks pay for qualifying employees who are partners of someone taking maternity leave (whether they are employed by us or another employer)
• Employees have the right to apply for flexible working, for any reason
• We allow employees to apply for hybrid working on a formal basis, but we also allow more flexible informal working arrangements from time to time
• We offer postdocs going on maternity leave the option to backfill their position during their maternity leave to maintain momentum with their research project during their leave period

Gender Pay Gap

We have reported our gender pay data since 2017 on our website and post this to the UK Government website as well. This is reviewed by our Board of Directors on an annual basis. We take a deep dive into our grades to review female salaries compared to that of males and make any necessary adjustments via our pay review system.

Signed and endorsed by our senior management team:
Owen Sansom (Director), Martin Bushell, Vicky Cowling, Gareth Inman,
Jacqueline Beesley, Sharon Gorman, Scott Kelso and Gary Niven