Equity and belonging

In March 2022 Dan Clay wrote an article for the Social Research Association’s Research Matters publication on addressing the diversity and inclusion challenge faced in our sector. This followed a roundtable with industry leaders including Gillian Prior (Deputy Chief Executive at NatCen), Ben Shimshon (Co-founder and Director at Britain Thinks), Trinh Tu (Head of Public Affairs at Ipsos MORI) and Craig Watkins (CEO at Kantar Public).

The article can be found on page 9 of the magazine here – take a read. In short it highlights that there is no time to wait and no excuses for inaction here. A lack of diversity in social research undermines the quality and credibility of our research. We may think it doesn’t but it does. It influences the way in which we frame the issues to be explored, our thoughts on sampling, the way in which we recruit people, how we interact with and understand participants, the questions we ask.

Homogeneity, both in terms of socio-demographics but also mindsets and experiences, has the benefit of creating short-term efficiencies in the workplace, but at the expense of quality. Diversity begets diversity – the only way to crack this is for organisations to be proactive and committed to doing the right thing here.

We’re very much at the start of this journey here at Basis Social but we do want to do the right thing and we will be interventionist. More to come on this shortly. If any of this resonates and you would like to discuss opportunities to work with or for us then please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Dan is Managing Partner at Basis Social dan.clay@basisresearch.co.uk