Your diverse lived experiences - GEDI survey findings

See the CCS Diverse Lived Experience survey summary

by Dr Lenka Vodstrcil and Dr Jess Borger

The Central Clinical School’s Gender Equity Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) committee aims to support and advocate for all its staff and students and regularly provides guidance or recommendations to the CCS Executive.

In 2021, the GEDI committee ran the CCS Diverse Lived Experiences survey to understand the hurdles or barriers CCS staff and students had faced during their career to inform the development of new GEDI Committee initiatives to support staff and their career progression.

The full findings are summarised in the document available here and we recently reported the findings to the CCS Executive.

Overall, approximately 40% of survey respondents felt that their career had been negatively impacted upon by one of 5 main factors; and women were 3-9 times more likely to select each of these responses:

• Lack of leadership and/or support for their career progression
• Workplace culture
• COVID pandemic
• Primary caregiver responsibilities
• Inability to find appropriate mentors

Furthermore, a quarter of respondents (of which 80% were female) reported being discriminated against, bullied or harassed at some stage in their careers.

Based on the 2021 Diverse Lived Experiences survey results, CCS staff and students would like the GEDI committee to provide:

1. Mentorship opportunities
2. Advice on how to deal with adversity and act as an advocate between staff and senior management.

The GEDI committee is currently planning a CCS Champions of GEDI mentoring program that will commence in late 2022. Those CCS leaders available for mentoring will be made visible for students and Early and Mid Career Researchers (postdocs within 10 years of PhD adjusted for career disruption) to approach for mentoring opportunities, with guidance provided on how to start and maintain successful mentoring relationships. 

Please see our other article, which includes the expression of interest form. All Level C - E who would like to support EMRCs at the CCS are encouraged to become part of the program.