The Foundation for Science and Technology
The Foundation for Science and Technology is hugely committed to increasing equity, diversity and inclusion within the UK STEM workforce – in academia, industry, the public sector and beyond.
We believe that we can play a small role in helping DiveIn CDT participants understand the boundaries between research and policymaking as part of our overall contribution to supporting EDI within STEM.
The Foundation for Science and Technology is a charity with 4 staff, based in London.
We provide an impartial platform for discussion and debate on key issues in UK science and technology, bringing together governments and parliaments within the UK, industry and the wider research community. We do this by organising events, publishing a Journal and recording regular podcasts. In addition, we run the Foundation Future Leaders programme, which each year brings together a cohort of early- to mid-career professionals from the public sector, industry and research, to learn about the UK S&T system as part of developing their careers.
Lack of diversity in UK STEM is Diversity is an issue of real concern to the Foundation. It forms part of our programme of discussion events – for example, “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in STEM” (June 2023) and “Black Scientists: Tackling Racism in UK Science and Technology” (December 2022). We also go to some lengths to promote the Foundation Future Leaders scheme to people from diverse backgrounds, with significant success, and those Future Leaders themselves are active in promoting EDI issues within UK STEM.
The FST is delighted to be a part of DiveIn. The support that we can provide includes:
• Enabling and encouraging participation by DiveIn CDT students in FST discussion events,which bring together researchers and policy makers in areas where science meet policy. Recent examples of events can be found here: https://www.foundation.org.uk/Events. We can also provide background information to CDT participants about why issues are topic and where science and policy need to work together.
• Providing support and feedback to CDT participants in writing blogs for a non-specialist audience – and publishing the resulting blogs on the FST’s blog site. • Organising online policy discussions with the CDT cohort, some with external speakers.
• Providing in-person training by the Foundation’s Chief Executive, on subjects such as the UK science advisory system, or how academic researchers can engage with policymakers. This could be followed up by 1:1 discussions with CDT members on how their own research links with policy.
• Occasional secondments to the FST to work on projects, reports or events.