Exclusion in Research: A point of view from Black and Asian Research Partners

Space Wars: Exclusion from Research

Collaborating for the UCL Public Engagement Blog, Rory, Sudhir Shah and Meerat Kurr shares their ideas for action to tackle the issues of exclusion of BAME communities from the point of view of the Asian community.

"…unlike the cast of space operas, research staff still too rarely take the leap to go beyond their usual department, let alone beyond the “known universe” of academic connections."

Using a comparison to Star Wars they highlight footfalls in academic habits in research and share tips on overcoming the ‘hard to reach’ barrier.

"Sending out calls for communities to come to the researcher’s base and asking them to describe things in academic terms is not collaboration. Being surprised that the same crowd shows up and blaming the absent for being tricky to track down is similarly unhelpful."

Read the full Space Wars blog to learn from Rory, Sudhir and Meerat.

Exploring the fluidity of ethnicity

Collaborating for the second UCL Public Engagement blog in the series of exclusion in research, Cherelle, Fola, Melvina and Mable explore the fluidity of ethnicity and the significant differences in their self-identified ethnicity as black women.

"These varying reflections on self-identity and ethnicity are subtle, but important

…If ethnicity is so fluid, how can researchers identify people from specific ethnic groups?"

They discuss broad terms like ‘BAME’ and ‘Ethnic Minorities’, how to move forward from broad ethnic groupings and how to identify communities by being more specific and inclusive.

"Where members of the public share their knowledge and lived experiences, remunerate their contributions and facilitate this by including appropriate costings in applications at the bid stage."

Read the full blog: HARD TO REseArCH: Black Inclusion in Research, to see what YOU can do now to promote meaningful equality, diversity and inclusion in research.