EDICa’s Flexible Fund
EDICa commissioned 13 small research projects in three rounds of funding which complemented EDICa’s own research. Read about our process and the funded projects.
Flexible Funding
Between 2023 and 2026, EDICa awarded 13 research projects, totalling £1 million. EDICa commissioned these research projects to act alongside our own work, to address stubborn inequalities in the research and innovation (R&I) sector.
The projects commissioned complement EDICa’s own research, addressing both similar themes and themes not addressed by EDICa. The projects were broken down into three different calls, each with their own focus:
- Round 1: Covid-19
This call focused on projects mitigating the effects of Covid-19 and public health measures (e.g. lockdowns) on inequalities across R&I careers. - Round 2: The Research Process
This call focused on projects looking at the processes of applying for, and evaluating, applications for research funds or the related processes of seeking publication in peer-reviewed outlets. - Round 3: The organisation of work and enabling workplaces
This call focused on projects looking at inclusive and enabling workplaces in the UK’s R&I ecosystem.
EDICa’s Flexible Fund Award Process
EDICa is creating a good practice guide to support other Flexible Funds, based on our own experience and feedback from reviewers, applicants and management staff. This is expected to be published Summer 2026.
EDICa requested that applicants complete a short EDI survey. This was not used to evaluate the proposals submitted, but to ensure that our calls were as inclusive as possible, with marginalised communities represented and to include in funding monitoring and reporting. The information gathered helped us to make sure that future calls were balanced. For example, after call one we noted that we received no applications from any D/deaf individuals, and so we endeavoured to make the Round 2 call more accessible and advertise the call within the D/deaf community.
EDICa published the application form and the reviewer rubric on its website, so that all applicants had the opportunity to understand exactly how the reviewers would be assessing their application.
Following our three calls, applicants and reviewers suggested that the structure of the application should better align to the reviewer criteria, making it simpler both for applicants to complete their application, and reviewers to use the criteria rubric.
Flexible Fund Round 1: Mitigating the impact of Covid-19
This call focused on projects mitigating the effects of Covid-19 and public health measures on inequalities across R&I careers.
This study investigated whether a ‘good’ degree outcome (First or Upper Second class) for racially minoritised graduates opens career pathways in research and innovation (R&I). The research is grounded in data from 2019/20 to 2020/21, a period when the undergraduate awarding gap between white and all other students significantly narrowed from 12.3% to 8.6%, the largest reduction in 16 years. However, this gap re-emerged in 2022/23 after Covid-19 mitigations introduced by universities during the height of the global pandemic were lifted, indicating that the changes were not embedded.
Link Dr Kamna Patel’s report on closing the awarding gap: http://edicaucus.ac.uk/report-on-feeding-the-research-innovation-pipeline-covid-19-and-closing-the-awarding-gap/
This study focused on work experiences and career implications of women with mental health issues (MHIs) in certain STEM roles during and post Covid-19. The study produced (a) evidence-based guidelines for employers on how to support the careers of women who experience MHIs in STEM and employees on how to navigate their careers in the midst of MHIs. (b) A manual of career stories with eight of the most representative cases. (c) A case study on women and MHIs in gendered workplaces.
Link to Prof Dulini Fernando’s report, case study, employer guidance for mental health support for women in STEM: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/women-and-mental-health-issues-in-stem-research-innovation/
Beyond the emerging consensus about the precarious nature of early career academics (ECAs) work and its effects on job security, career aspirations and development, little is known about their lived experiences. This research project led by a team of researchers at Oxford Brookes University in partnership with the British Academy of Management (BAM), provided a comprehensive understanding of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the career life cycle of early career academics (ECAs), with a particular focus on marginalized groups including women and ethnic minorities.
Link to Dr Beldina Owalla’s report on the Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on the Career Life Cycle of Early Career Academics: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/impact-of-pandemic-on-career-life-cycle-of-early-career-academics/
Covid-19 affected the career progress of disabled researchers. Complicated by race, gender and caring responsibility, disabled researchers struggled to access the appropriate support. The aim of this 12-month project was to investigate the sustained impact of the pandemic on the career progress of disabled researchers who are multiply marginalised by other marginalised characteristics, namely race, gender and/or caring responsibilities.
Link to Dr Preethi Premkumar’s documentary on the experiences of disabled researchers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and recommendations for practice: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/the-impact-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-on-the-career-progress-of-disabled-researchers-in-intersection-with-race-gender-and-caring-responsibility/
Flexible Fund Round 2: The Research Process
This call focused on projects looking at the processes of applying for, and evaluating, applications for research funds or the related processes of seeking publication in peer-reviewed outlets.
The project aimed to investigate challenges and opportunities encountered by underrepresented individuals during the funding application preparation process, particularly focusing on Narrative CVs. Unlike traditional academic CVs, narrative CVs use a narrative approach to highlight the applicants’ achievements and strengths, aiming to reduce evaluation biases.
Link to Dr Fabio Fasoli’s guidance for writing narrative CVs and concept map showing barriers and facilitators concerning the application process: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/writing-and-evaluating-narrative-cvs/
The “REPAIR” project is addressing systemic inequities in the way academic research funding is awarded, with a particular focus on improving fairness for marginalised early career researchers (ECRs). By partnering with key academic and research communities, including the Faculty of Brain Sciences and the Faculty of Arts & Humanities at University College London (UCL), REPAIR leverages diverse perspectives to reshape the (pre) selection and nomination processes.
At the core of REPAIR is a commitment to mapping out and understanding the current funding system to identify where biases might occur. This involves using diagrams to visualize decision flows and analysing academic networks to spot patterns of unfairness, ensuring that the areas most in need of change are targeted effectively. ECRs and other underrepresented groups are central to this process. Through interviews and direct engagement, REPAIR will gather personal experiences and insights, making certain that the proposed changes address real-world challenges and lead to genuine improvements.
This project is still ongoing and all resources will be shared shortly.
The project aimed to examine how current funding structures, expectations of a linear career, and gendered and ableist expectations of unpaid labour hinder access to career progression opportunities. The project shed light on the invisibilised labour, time required and expected, and obstacles encountered by these groups before and during the grant-writing process, revealing exclusions inherent in conventional funding structures.
Link to Dr Cécile Ménard and Dr Lena Wånggren’s report analysing funding structures and their exclusion long-term casualised academics, with recommendations, as well as a full project report with lived experiences. https://edicaucus.ac.uk/recognising-long-term-casualised-academics-in-the-funding-landscape/
Link to the creative output of eight profiled academics and their personal stories.
The growing expectations for academics to be publicly visible through research impact and engagement are reshaping research cultures, with particular consequences on researchers working on LGBTQ+ topics, many of whom may identify as LGBTQ+ themselves. Academics want to promote their research outside of the university, collaborate with external organisations and individuals, and realise the potential of their research to make a difference. However, in an increasingly queer- and transphobic public environment, this is becoming more difficult and more risky for researchers working on LGBTQ+ topics.
This project explored how harassment, or the threat of it, affects researchers working on LGBTQ+ topics. It also examined the experiences of professional services staff who support academics and assessed existing policy and procedural documentation.
Link to a toolkit to support academic and professional services address public harassment in LGBT+ research impact and engagement, and a project report, including recommendations, created by Dr Tig Slater, Dr Charlotte Jones, Dr Rosie Nelson and Amy Ryall: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/all-visibility-good-visibility/
Flexible Fund Round 3: The organisation of work and enabling workplaces
This call focused on projects looking at inclusive and enabling workplaces in the UK’s research & innovation ecosystem.
Black academics made up less than 1% of professors in the 2022/23 academic session (Higher Education Statistics Agency, 2024) and are less likely to hold senior leadership positions or become professors in the UK. A similar trend is observed in the National Health Service, where Black nurses are twice less likely to be promoted than their White counterparts. Although nursing is the largest profession in the healthcare workforce, it remains underrepresented in research, research leadership and publication authorship.
This study aimed to theoretically explore the barriers to conducting research among Black nursing academics working at non-Russell group UK universities. It produced a summary of actionable, sector‑focused recommendations for improving research equity for Black nursing academics
This project is still ongoing and all resources will be shared shortly.
The 2500+ archives in the UK are an important workplace for a wide range of users – from archivists, through to town planners, film-makers, genealogists, and historians. While there is a growing body of work about disability and archival accessibility, at present, very little is known about neurodivergent archive accessibility. With 15-20% of the UK population estimated to be neurodivergent, this means that there is a substantial and underserved community in the archive sector. The term ‘Neurodivergent’ emerged from autistic activism, designating those whose styles of thinking, communicating, or processing information diverges from the accepted norm, such as people with ADHD, dyslexia, Tourette’s, dyscalculia, or learning disabilities. Though some neurodivergent people are disabled, many are not.
Led by Dr Ria Cheyne, Dr Ann-Marie Foster and Dr Lucina Matthews-Jones, a group of neurodivergent researchers, this project has generated new insights into how neurodivergent users experience the archive, as well as an accessibility template to support neurodivergent access in the archives: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/divergent-minds-in-the-archive/
Around 1 in 5 working people in the UK are disabled, but in the research and innovation sector, this drops to 1 in 25. This lack of diversity in the workforce negatively impacts the quality of research and innovation outputs. Historically, disabled people have been regarded as a safety hazard in laboratory environments. Modern design and protocols can make labs fully accessible, safe, and comfortable for disabled people. However poor attitudes and low knowledge about how to make labs accessible can hinder progress.
This project aimed to create an assessment of how accessible laboratories are for disabled people. The project assessed the accessibility of a range of labs across the Eastern Arc (the universities of East Anglia (UEA), Essex, Kent and Sussex), as well as two highly accessible facilities at UEA to gain some feedback on what aspects of disability access recommendations do or do not work in practice.
Dr Katherine Deane and her team created two downloadable templates for conducting accessibility assessments: one for structural accessibility and the other for equipment accessibility. Link to accessibility assessment tools: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/dale/
This project explores how hybrid working models shape the productivity and visibility of Black women academics in higher education following the Covid-19 pandemic. While hybrid work arrangements offer flexibility, they also raise critical questions about professional recognition, career progression, and inclusion within academic spaces. Using a qualitative approach, this study gathered insights through interviews and focus groups to explore how institutional policies, digital engagement, and workplace cultures influence the experiences of Black women in academia.
This project is still ongoing and all resources will be shared shortly. You can see a LinkedIn post from the principal investigator following a 10 June workshop at UWE Bristol: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7472203639042842624/
Universities in the UK are facing the difficulties of increased demand for their services when resources are finite and often decreasing. While this situation invariably leads to increased strain on the people who work in universities, it does not appear that the associated work intensification and stresses fall equally on all. This project examined the experiences of women academics in UK Higher Education (UKHE) with mental health conditions, who may be disproportionately affected by the current working environment, to better understand the impact of multiple barriers on their professional and personal lives.
The project examined how enabling workplace practices can address the problematic connections between gender and mental health conditions in UKHE.
Link to an illustrated 10-page briefing of the research and an easy-read version of findings: https://edicaucus.ac.uk/mental-health-heis/
Check out EDICa’s resources
EDICa has collected a library of resources of equality, diversity & inclusion practices in research & innovation.
Comic- Peer Review Panels
Date: 25th May 2026 –
A two-page comic depicting a peer review panel discussing merits of applicants from research-intensive and modern universities.
Peer Review Bias in Funding
Date: 4th April 2024
EDICa publishes a report on Peer Review Bias in Funding. Read some highlights.
Black Professors
Date: 28th February 2023
EDICa’s PI, Prof Kate Sang, writes about the need for EDI research, as the Caucus kicked off.
