Title: Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) Policy

Owner: Connie 

Purpose: To define employee rights, responsibilities, and resources with respect to diversity, equity and inclusion.  

Brief Description: This policy covers resources allocated to DEI, the role of DEI in daily life as a Science Melting Pot employee, DEI reflection and training initiatives, and continuous DEI data collection and improvement.  This policy is supplemented by the Participant Code of Conduct and the Oscar code. 

Action 1: Framing DEI as part of our DNA

Our work in creating events for science communication and diversity in science means DEI is in our organisational DNA.  But even though it is our content, we also pledge to take time to integrate DEI actions in our daily work towards our diverse team and audiences.  To continually improve our own actions and our work with ourselves, actions 2 and 3 will work together to support us in navigating our journey to practice what we preach. 

Our definition of DEI 

 In Science Melting Pot, we define diversity broadly.  To work with DEI in our organization, we see equity as structural and inclusion as experiential.   By approaching equity as structural we mean that we provide needs based support for employees, and adapt the working environment to meet their needs.  

From an organizational perspective, our view on DEI:

is evolving as we continue to work with DEI and reflect on our own biases, as well as biases that are dominant in current social and scientific paradigms.  Key areas that we work on with respect to DEI involve identifying and making minority perspectives visible.  This includes perspectives from people of all ages, all abilities and disabilities, people with neurodiversity, people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, all national origins, all religions, all sexual orientations, and people of all genders, nonbinary and binary. As discrimination can be broadly defined as differential treatment directed at groups or individuals based on other characteristics as well, we also include socio-economic class, education, and body type as forms of diversity with perspectives that we respect and listen to. 

• We are currently working on having a Code of Conduct in place for the employees (coming this Fall)

• We have a Code of Conduct in place for the participants at our workshops and events.

From an employee perspective this includes the rights to:

• Work in a safe and healthy environment - We have a Oscar code in place for event facilitators  to help each other in case of any issues during our external workshops, meetings  and events.

• Be free from discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, sex, disability, religion, age, or national origin.

• Be free from workplace harassment and sexual harassment.

• Have privacy and protection of personal information, within legal limits.

• Report unsafe, illegal, or discriminatory conduct without retaliation.

• Request reasonable accommodations for a disability, religious practice, or caregiving responsibilities.

Action 2:  Using DEI principles to govern our hiring practices and internal work environment

In hiring, we welcome diversity and strive to build an organization that reflects and models the diversity we focus on with our clients when we do DEI training work.

 In working we:

1. Focus on supporting our diverse employees to engage with each other and our clients in a healthy, supportive, and inclusive environment. 

2. Support each other in our work, acknowledging the diverse talents that each of us brings to the organization.  

3. Focus on being inclusive towards others, and engaging as respected and included people in the Science Melting Pot context. 

4. Are included for our perspectives, talents, experiences, and differences. 
   

 Science Melting Pot works to ensure that equity is reflected through our policies and cultural practices; and that inclusion is the result and experience for our employees.   

In our annual training seminar, we will ensure there is time to reflect on DEI in addition to related core topics such as Gender Equity, use of GAI, and Privacy.  We will use our learnings in this seminar as an ongoing tool to revise our policies and procedures, including our DEI policy and Gender Equity Plan.  Core issues to be discussed during these sessions include: 

1) How to handle participants who are challenged by DEI content in a workshop by applying DEI principles to all perspectives;  

2) Responding to unexpected situations with DEI principles in mind

3) How to give respectful and constructive feedback to workshop participants who are challenged by new perspectives becoming visible in their contexts.

4) Setting expectations and revisiting them with respect to the shape of an employee’s work and tasks.  

Action 4:  Continuous data collection and improvement

In our annual training seminar, we will collect qualitative data to establish a basis for assessing how well our actions for DEI are working with our internal team, as well as our interactions with clients. Based on this information, we reflect together on  how we can adjust our policy and related actions to ensure that we are doing our best with respect to DEI. 

Related Policies: Gender Equity Plan, GAI Policy 

Training Process: DEI training included in our annual training and reflection workshop, as outlined in the Gender Equity Plan. SMP employees and current freelancers will be invited to attend.  It is mandatory for employees and highly encouraged for freelancers. 

Revision Process: Within one month of the annual training workshop, the DEI policy and description will be revisited and revised to reflect our most recent thinking and work on rights, responsibilities and resources needed for effective DEI implementation and maintenance throughout Science Melting Pot’s organization.