Watch the Webinar: What Does Inclusion Mean in the World of Research?

What are journal editors, funders, and publishers doing to support researchers of all backgrounds – specifically those who have been underrepresented, unheard, and underprivileged? What impact does this effort have on the research environment and even for the research itself? And what can we learn from each other to enable new changes that address shortcomings? In this hour-long webinar presented on July 28, a funder, editor, and publisher – moderated by University of Michigan psychologist Elizabeth Cole – shared what they are doing to make a more inclusive research environment, challenges they face along the way, and ideas for future improvement. (And please see the additional resources at the bottom of this post.)

This webinar was sponsored by SAGE Publishing (the parent of Social Science Space) and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences. For future news on other FABBS activities, you can click here.

Moderator:

Elizabeth R. Cole is professor of psychology, women’s and gender studies, and Afroamerican and African studies at the University of Michigan. Her scholarship applies feminist theory on intersectionality to social science research on race, gender, and social justice. She is coauthor (with Andrea Press) of Speaking of Abortion: Television and Authority in the Lives of Women (University of Chicago Press, 1999). She is a past president and a fellow of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (American Psychological Association Division 9), and a consulting editor for Psychology of Women Quarterly.

Panelists:

Christopher Barnhart, the session’s funder representative, is currently a health science policy analyst in the National Institutes of Health’s Sexual and Gender Minority Research Office, where he supports and promotes the health of sexual and gender minority communities through analysis of relevant grant portfolios, manuscript and report authorship, strategic planning, workshop development, outreach coordination, and representation. A pharmacologist and toxicologist, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, examining how environmental toxicants and individual genetic factors may interact to affect the developing nervous system.

Meng-Chuan Lai, the session’s editor, is a staff psychiatrist, clinician scientist and O’Brien Scholar within the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Hospital for Sick Children, and University of Toronto. He is an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, and Graduate Faculty at the Institute of Medical Science and Department of Psychology. His research delineates how sex- and gender-related factors act as risk, protective, and modulating mechanisms for the behavioral presentation and adaptation, clinical recognition and diagnosis, neurobiology and etiologies, of autism and co-occurring conditions.

Caroline Porter is executive publisher of journals at SAGE Publishing. She plays a key role in executing SAGE’s strategic objectives around the management, development and growth of its journals business.  She sits on the steering group of SAGE’s global Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Research taskforce, and is a member of SAGE UK’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council.  She also sits on SAGE’s Research Integrity Group and is a trustee of the Committee on Publication Ethics. 

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN OR INSPIRED BY THE WEBINAR

• What is happening related to inclusion at the National Institutes of Health?
  • The 21^st Century Cures Act (link)
  • NIH FY 2021-2025 SGM research strategic plan (link)
  • Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office (link)
  • NIH bodies that help to ensure and increase SGM inclusion
    • SGM Research Coordinating Committee (link)
    • SGM Research Working Group (link)
    • The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (link)
    • The Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (link)
    • The Office of Scientific Workforce Diversity (link)
    • The NIH Office of Intramural Training and Education (link)
  • 8CRE and UNITE Initiatives to tackle structural racism
    • 8 Changes for Racial Equity (link)
    • The UNITE Initiative (link)
• Different levers/opportunities to increase inclusion
  • Collection of SOGI and sex (particularly intersex) data
    • The All of Us Research Program (link)
      • The All of Us public data browser (link) is available for anyone to explore and conduct preliminary analyses on the public All of Us dataset.
      • The Researcher Workbench (link) can now be accessed by investigators to conduct more sophisticated and intensive analyses on the larger non-public dataset with the proper authorization.
    • PhenX toolkit (link)
    • SGMRO Methods & Measurements webpage (link)
    • Inclusion of SOGI measures in the 2020 Workplace Climate and Harassment Survey revealed unique experiences and issues of harassment amongst populations who identify as SGM (link)
    • NASEM panel on SOGI and sex data collection in clinical, research, and administrative settings (link)
  • Response to relevant RFIs
    • Current open RFIs of potential relevance to EDI can be found on the Federal Register website (link)
  • Increasing the diversity of reviewers
    • The CSR’s Early Career Reviewer program (link)
    • Relevant article (link)
  • Using the portfolio analyses (link) and the strategic plan to identify gaps and opportunities in the SGM research portfolio to craft targeted grant submissions
    • NOT-MD-19-001 (SGM Notice of Special Interest; link)
    • SGM Administrative Supplements Program (link)
    • Potentially diversity supplements depending upon which Institute or Center to which an application is submitted (link)
  • Regional Workshops to improve grantspersonship and capacity in SGM health research (link)
  • Participation in NIH-supported programs that seek to expand inclusivity in the biomedical research workforce
    • Intramural Continuing Umbrella of Research Experiences, or iCURE, program (link)
    • Amgen Scholars Program (link)
    • Health Disparities Research Institute (link)
  • NIH SGM Scientific Interest Group (link)