About Gamechangers in STEM

Resources

Want to learn more about the challenges surrounding diversity in STEM? Below we’ve put together some links to relevant reports and background reading.

Through Both Eyes - a case for a gender lens in STEM by the ScienceGrrl community; relates to women
Perish not publish? New study quantifies the lack of female authors in scientific journals by Ione Fine and Prof Alicia Shen; relates to women
Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering by National Science Foundation; relates to women, people from ethnic minorities, disabled people
Coming out in STEM: Factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students by Prof Bryce Hughes; relates to LGBTQ+
Report on the HBCU/BSI Physics Chairs Summit convened by the APS Committee on Minorities in Physics; relates to people from ethnic minorities
CaSE (Campaign for Science and Engineering) policy review on improving diversity and inclusion in science; relates to women, people from ethnic minorities, government strategy

If you have any questions, or would like to add another resource please let us know!

Themes

Below are some challenges that we - the organising team - are thinking about. We've split them into a few different categories: gender equality, sexual abuse, women and gender minorities, LGBTQ+, black and minority ethnic and disabled people, and managing diversity initatives.

We would love for some of your proposed initiatives to aim to improve one or more of the points below, but this is absolutely a non-exhaustive list! Your focus is very welcome.

If you'd like to add to the list below, please send us a message and we'll be happy to update it!

Gender equality

How do we reduce the pay gap?
How can we improve recruitment systems to be more gender equal?
Female and nonbinary empowerment
Gender bias in AI
Using AI for good
How do we better educate about sexual health?

Sexual abuse

Awareness of the scale
How do we better prevent sexual misconduct in the workplace?
How do we better teach students about the signs of sexual abuse?
How do we better approach/teach men about sexual abuse?
What can we innovate to help sexual abuse victims feel more comfortable/recover?

Women and gender minorities in STEM

How do we get more girls interested in STEM?
How do we keep women in STEM once they’ve started?
Sexual misconduct in the STEM workplace
How to improve visibility of female scientists in the media?
How to improve visibility of female scientists in primary schools?
How do we educate teachers about the importance of STEM subjects?

LGBTQ+ people in STEM

How do we build LGBTQ+ friendly workplace environments?
How do we banish stereotypes and avoid assumptions?
How do we educate cisgender people on how to best welcome and support transgender colleagues?
How do we raise awareness of heterosexual privilege?

Black and minority ethnic people in STEM

How do we encourage BAME students to study STEM subjects?
How do we create an environment which improves retention of BAME students and staff?
How can we get engineering firms to actively encourage BAME graduates to apply?
How do we remove the racial biases at companies which mean BAME engineering graduates are 2 times more likely to be unemployed than white graduates with comparable qualifications?
How do we support those for whom English is a second language?

Disabled people in STEM

How do we ensure work environments provide no barriers or safety concerns for those with disabilities?
How do we educate on invisible disabilities?
How can we build communities which are inclusive and supportive of their neurodiverse members?

Managing diversity initiatives

How can we best measure impact?
How can we make sure projects and initiatives are joined up and encourage collaboration?
How can we increase support for initiatives which have impact?