Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Sustainable Practice statement

At Research Outreach, we strive to ensure that all our professional relationships are built upon a foundation of mutual respect, decency, and inclusion. We have established and maintain a safe, inclusive, and environmentally friendly working environment, both within the office and for those working remotely.

Our beliefs

Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core tenets underlying every stage of our professional process – from recruitment, training, and development to client liaison, collaboration, and outreach. For us, it is not simply about abiding by the letter of these tenets, but working to guarantee that the spirit of inclusion and mutual respect underpins everything we do.

As a company with a central focus upon global outreach, we have a duty to ensure that these commitments are reflected through every channel of communication. As such, we work to prevent all forms of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, race and ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexual identity. We celebrate the vital importance of this diversity to the wider research community, and ensure that it is central to our company ethos.

As a small company which has grown significantly over the past few years, we recognise the importance of outlining our credentials in these areas. This statement details the policies and strategies we have implemented to fortify our commitments to EDI and sustainable work practices.

Our policies

Our workplace

  • We ensure a culturally sensitive working environment, with colleagues working remotely across multiple continents. Whether working remotely or in the office, all our colleagues engage in multiple informal meetings throughout the week to foster collaboration and maintain our community.
  • We ensure flexible working arrangements are in place for any colleagues who need them, for example due to family commitments.
  • Some of our colleagues benefit from a four-day working week, meaning they can enjoy a three-day weekend.
  • We work out of an environmentally friendly office space which is powered in part by solar panels.
  • For those colleagues working from home, we check in monthly to ensure all overtime has been logged. We take every effort to ensure a comfortable work/life balance, and this means ensuring that homeworking does not encroach upon downtime.
  • During the COVID-19 pandemic, we ensured all colleagues felt entirely comfortable with their working arrangements and have since rethought our office working practices to maintain the highest standards of hygiene and colleague safety.
  • We offer all colleagues a free subscription to Headspace, to assist with positive mental health.

Our colleagues

  • We maintain a gender balanced workforce, with women holding 50% of senior roles within the company.
  • Everyone involved in all aspects of our recruitment process understands and respects inclusion and diversity. Our work is fundamentally reliant upon a wealth of writers, designers, editors, animators, and project managers from a diverse array of backgrounds, with an eclectic mix of interests and specialisms. Our recruitment process necessarily reinforces our reliance upon such diversity.

Our services

  • We take a zero-tolerance approach to any research which we think promotes hate or justifies prejudice. The research we publish must be credible and academically astute.
  • Through our ‘Community content’ channel we provide a platform to researchers who may not have the means to access our other services. It is our mission to ensure scientific research is disseminated to the widest possible audience, and this means ensuring all researchers are equally represented.
  • We strive to ensure all our photographs, illustrations and visual accompaniments reflect the diversity of the community we work within.
  • During the social media promotional stage, our clients are offered the choice to target particular demographics, ensuring their research speaks to the very people it most closely impacts.

Our objectives

We recognise that as our company and our client base grows, we need to remain proactive in our approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We will therefore ensure we have an open and collaborative conversation, which all our colleagues and clients are welcome to partake in.

Going forward, we are keen to target specific areas to ensure our practices and our workspace remain safe, inclusive, respectful, enjoyable, and diverse.

  • We are keen to ensure all colleagues feel entirely safe in our office space. We therefore encourage collaboration and discussion when it comes to a safe and healthy mediation between home and office working.
  • We want to ensure the policies outlined in this document undergo a frequent and open review process, so all our colleagues and clients feel they have a platform through which to air grievances, make suggestions, and celebrate successes.