Our ED&I strategy provides an outline of our current position and explains how we plan to address ED&I issues across our business. Published in 2020/21, the strategy acts as a five-year roadmap to embed ED&I in everything that we do. It sets our ambitions and priorities, translating our vision into measurable outcomes to be delivered at all our sites.

The National Equality Standard (NES) is the UK’s leading diversity assessment framework. It sets the standard by which our business is independently audited and assessed through an equality, diversity and inclusion lens.

We were proud to be awarded the NES accreditation in 2021 on our first application, which was a significant achievement. In 2023 we were audited again and successfully achieved re-accreditation - a real endorsement of our approach and progress in ED&I.

As part of the audit process, the NES reviewed all our policies, practices and employee feedback, assessing us against a number of criteria where we were able to demonstrate our continuous improvements across the business. The learning from NES will steer our strategy and actions for the future.

Our ED&I SharePoint site provides information about all aspects of ED&I, including:

• our ED&I Strategy and governance – read the full strategy and learn more about the individuals responsible for the governance of ED&I at UKNNL.
• the National Equality Standard – read our latest report, or a summary of the conclusions and recommendations.
• legislation, policy and procedure – here you’ll find links to the latest legislation and policy on ED&I along with further information about the protected characteristics set out under the Equality Act 2010.
• meet the ED&I team – where you can find out more about the roles and responsibilities and key points of contact for those colleagues delivering our ED&I strategy.
• useful information - here you’ll find documents such as our gender pay gap report and tips about how to embed ED&I in your work.

You can access the ED&I site at any time via Nucleus underneath the 'Useful Links' menu.

UKNNL has a proactive ED&I team which is made up of volunteers from across our business. Dedicated workstream leads head up the six workstream areas set out in our strategy. At each of our sites, you will also find an ED&I site representative and ambassadors. Reps and ambassadors will help you with any ED&I related questions and concerns. They’re also great to talk to about any ideas you have that can help us improve our ED&I culture.

If you are passionate about ED&I and would like to make a difference, please do get involved by joining our team. Find out more about our team, your local site rep and ambassadors along with available roles by visiting our ‘Meet the Team’ pages.

If you need help and support while at work there are a number of people, processes and systems available to help you.

Providing your personal ED&I data helps us better understand the diversity of our workforce, enabling us to learn where we can provide support or highlight areas that we need to address.

However, the data that we currently hold only tells part of the story – sex, age, part/full time working helps us to understand, for example, if women are being discriminated against but without sufficient data, we are unable to do the same for our ethnic minority colleagues or our LGBTQ+ community.

You can confidentially add your personal data on Business World to help us ensure that our work reflects the lived experience at UKNNL and ultimately contributes towards building a fairer and more equitable society.

Adding your data to Business World takes less than two minutes and you can find instructions about how to do so by clicking the button below. You can also opt out by simply entering your answer as ‘prefer not to say’.

All data is processed in accordance with UKNNL’s Data Protection Policy (UKNNL-POLICY-023), UKNNL's Data Retention Instruction (IMS-DP-01) and NNL's Employee, Worker and Contractor's Privacy Notice (IMS-GN-024) . These policies are available on Q-Pulse.

If you have any queries about the processing of personal data, please contact the HR department in the first instance or our data protection officer. The data will only be retrieved by authorised individuals through HR and processed in an anonymised format. The specifics of your personal data will therefore not be visible to everyone, including line managers. All summaries will be kept at a high level to ensure individuals are never identifiable.

NES

National Equality Standard which stands as a testament to UKNNL's steadfast commitment to addressing ED&I and culture across UKNNL. The ED&I programme is independently audited where UKNNL has to maintain and demonstrate continuous improvement against a set of ED&I Standards.

Workstream Lead

Workstream Leads re responsible for the delivery plan for each workstream. Identifying improvements across the business, working with external groups and organisations and influencing people, working practices and procedures across UKNNL.

Ambassadors & Site Reps

Volunteers who actively support ED&I initiatives across the lab and visibly act as a local representatives across UKNNL sites.