Associates: EDI Data Collection

EDI data collection

Hello,   We have recently launched an updated Equality Diversity and Inclusion survey for Innovate UK applicants, which has been built to improve the quality and quantity of data we receive from applicants. The survey will: only have to be completed once, and then updated each year (instead of being asked to complete the survey for each competition) be accessible from an Applicant’s IFS profile, so they can review and update it whenever they want to ask more questions on different characteristics, so we can gather greater understanding about who is applying to Innovate UK and who is being successful be compulsory for Lead Applicants and open to team members, to ensure we are gathering as much useful data as possible (there is a ‘prefer not to say’ option for every question)

How does this impact me?

There is no action for you to take, and we hope the improved data will help you better understand the demographic of who is and, importantly, who is not engaging with Innovate UK. We wanted to make you aware because you may receive queries from applicants. Customer Support Services have been given a list of FAQ’s (included at the bottom of this document)

Who will have access to the data?

We are developing dashboards where you will be able to access reports for competitions/sectors/etc. These will include summaries of the demographics of those who applied and were successful, similar to the information we currently provide.

What else is happening?

Introducing this updated data collection process is an important step in developing our understanding of who we are supporting. We know that for a lot of our work we don’t fund individuals, and instead are funding teams and supporting businesses to deliver outstanding innovations. Over the next year we will be exploring ways to better capture EDI data about teams and organisations.

How can I get involved?

We always welcome insights and suggestions around EDI activities. Please reply to this email if you would like to feed into the data dashboard development, have ideas on team/ organisation data collection, or any other aspects of EDI.  We look forward to working with you as we continue to embed EDI into the competition and assessment processes.

Finally, a big thank you to BS&I for delivering this project!

 

 

Katy Petherick (she/her)

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Programme Lead (Embedding)

Innovate UK

+44 7745 545172

 

 

 

 

 

 

FAQ’s

§ Why do I have to provide personal data?

By answering these questions you’re helping us to ensure that Innovate UK is as inclusive and accessible as possible and treating everyone who engages with us fairly. We can only do this if we know who is currently engaging with us.

§ What are you going to do with the data?

We use the personal data you give us to:

§ identify any under-represented groups, investigate the reasons for this and take appropriate and effective steps to improve representation

§ publish aggregated and anonymised data as part of our commitment to transparency and supporting access and inclusion

We’ll store your data securely and handle it in line with UK data protection legislation and good practice, including restricting access to identifiable information. If you would like to know more, including how to exercise your data protection rights, please see our privacy notice.

§ Who has access to my data?

We are restricting access to your data. Only the technical data handlers will have access to the raw data. Other people (including funding decision makers) will only have access to anonymised and aggregated data. This will minimise the possibility of any identifiable data being shared.

§ Will the data I provide be used to decide whether to give me funding?

We are committed to funding the best ideas, and our assessment process is designed to ensure that we are doing exactly this. We will continue to fund the higher scoring applications, and we will never fund anyone who falls below the quality threshold.

In accordance with our Public Sector Equality Duty to advance equality of opportunity between those who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, analysis of data will enable Innovate UK to investigate if applicants to the scheme who share a protected characteristic:

a. suffer a disadvantage linked to that characteristic

b. have different needs to other groups, or

c. have a disproportionately low level of participation

If we identify any trends in the data that provide evidence of a need, we will investigate this and look at what appropriate and proportionate interventions that can be taken to address this.

For example, we successfully diversified the ethnicity of applicants to our Women in Innovation award through targeted advertising and information sessions. Having more robust data will enable us to take similar actions elsewhere, when required.

We are committed to being transparent about our work. As part of this, we plan to publish an annual report on the data we collect, as well as detail the actions we are taking to support diversity and inclusion in innovation, and the progress we will be making.

I don’t feel comfortable answering some of these questions – why is it compulsory?

To accurately analyse the data provided, we need to collect information from as many people as possible. Each question does have a ‘Prefer not to say’ option, for anyone who doesn’t want to share their information. We’ll store your data securely and handle it in line with UK data protection legislation and good practice, including restricting access to identifiable information.

We do appreciate that we are asking personal questions, some of which you may not have been asked in a similar situation. Our intention isn’t to make anyone feel uncomfortable, or to single people out because they do or don’t fall into minoritized categories. We know that challenges in diversity is bigger than an individual, and there is a lot of work that we, as a key component of the UK’s innovation sector, need to do. Our aim is to understand our audience and work to improve what we do to ensure we are accessible to all who are interested.

§ What if I want to change my information?

You can access your data at any time from your IFS profile page. Here you can edit your responses to any question.

§ When are these data being used?

We use anonymised and aggregated data to provide reports of the diversity of applicants to competitions. We break this information down by application stage (e.g. applied and successful) for analysis (e.g. success rate by characteristic). For the reports, counts are rounded to the nearest multiple of 5, and results are not disclosed for groups with 1 to 4 members, which are denoted with '--'.

The summarised data is available to internal teams, including the associated competition teams, so they can analyse the diversity of applicants. If they identify an under-represented group, then the reasons for this will be investigated and appropriate and proportionate interventions will be actioned.

We will be looking at the most appropriate method(s) to publish these data, in-line with our commitment to transparency and supporting access and inclusion.