Research Team Composition
NOTE: This guide is in development.
Introduction
Diversity strengthens the quality and impact of research by bringing multiple ideas and perspectives to a team.
Diversity does not happen organically. Be intentional in diversifying your team. Whether you are recruiting and selecting co-investigators, trainees or research personnel, identify barriers experienced by historically excluded groups and work towards dismantling them.
Key Considerations
To increase diversity in team composition
- Actively recruit excellent and diverse research team members
- Create a transparent selection processes that mitigates potential bias in recruitment
Guidelines and Practices
Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in Research Teams and Training: Promising Practices and Resources Handbook – Recruitment of Team Members and Trainees
University of Toronto, Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation (May 2024)
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This University of Toronto handbook provides examples of practices to embed equity throughout the recruitment and selection process of team members and trainees. Key action items:
- Being intentional in seeking out a diversity of team members
- Recruiting team members who have demonstrated experience in EDI leadership or initiatives
- Openly posting opportunities to attract a broad and diverse pool of applicants
- Using consistent selection criteria and processes
- Adopting an inclusive definition of research excellence.
Incorporating EDI considerations for research teams in NSERC applications
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
Section 2 of the NSERC Guide on Integrating Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Considerations in Research assists natural sciences and engineering researchers to consider how EDI is relevant to building teams. The goal is to encourage greater reflection on how research and teams could be strengthened by taking steps to create an equitable and inclusive environment with diverse team members. Key action items:
- When building a research team, learn about the current state of diversity in the discipline, department and institution, help identify and mitigate potential barriers and biases
- Consider whether the people potentially most impacted by the research can be included to co-develop the research
- Other steps include familiarizing yourself with your institution’s EDI guidelines or policies
- Creating a process that mitigates potential bias in recruitment
- Asking all members of the selection committee to complete EDI/bias training
- Promoting decision-making by more than one person to ensure a transparent process
- And ensuring assessment processes consider broad markers of excellence.
This guide helps support New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) applicants and reviewers, in achieving greater equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in their research practice and design. The section on Team Composition and Recruitment Processes suggests best practices that could be implemented to address systemic barriers related to team composition and recruitment. Key action items:
- Commit to developing your knowledge of systemic barriers, carefully consider what role you play as a research leader to help identify and mitigate racism, sexism, homophobia and ableism within your research and research teams
- Provide training for team members to ensure they understand why EDI in research is important
- During recruitment, create a selection committee and a process that prevents potential bias
- Use the same assessment process for all candidates, and ensure it is equitable
- Actively challenge the notion of rewarding the familiar, such as traditional, westernized approaches to research and consider whether the interview questions allow candidates to speak to different ways of knowing, methods and/or experiences.
Guide to Addressing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Considerations in Partnership Grant Applications – EDI in Research Practice
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council’s Guide to Addressing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Considerations in Partnership Grant Applications provides examples of EDI in research practice related to team composition and recruitment of trainees. Key action items:
- Grant applicants must identify concrete practices that will be used to ensure that EDI is being intentionally and proactively considered in putting together the team and recruiting team members
- Commit to develop your knowledge of EDI
- Learn about the current state of diversity in your discipline(s)
- Involve an EDI officer from the institution in each stage of the recruitment process
- Establish a policy/procedure to ensure that career leaves and interruptions are fairly considered in recruitment and selection processes.
Creating an Equitable, Diverse and Inclusive Research Environment: A Best Practices Guide for Recruitment, Hiring and Retention
Government of Canada, Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC)
Sections A to F of this guide discuss recruitment and retention action items to put in place the right conditions for everyone to reach their full potential, unimpeded by inequitable practices. Key action items:
Job Postings
- Ensure an EDI expert reviews and approves the job posting
- Post all job postings publicly
- Use encompassing, clear, flexible criteria for assessing excellence
- Strongly encourage language that focuses on abilities over experience.
Search for Candidates
- Mandate proactive, strategic outreach to attract members of underrepresented groups
- Keep track of promising students and postdoctoral researchers as they progress through their career to make them aware of employment opportunities.
Hiring Committee
- Compile a diverse search committee, including a faculty member with EDI expertise
- Provide mandatory EDI training for all committee members
- Identify potential biases, stereotypes and micro-aggressions revealed during discussions, and support the committee members as they work through them.
Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research Labs
Ahmad, A. S., Sabat, I., Trump-Steele, R., & King, E. (2019). Evidence-Based Strategies for Improving Diversity and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research Labs. Frontiers in Psychology, 10.
This paper highlights some evidence-based solutions to recruit and select students from diverse backgrounds to undergraduate research labs. Key action items:
- In advertisements for student positions, include pictures of diverse students and explicit statements to encourage students from all backgrounds to apply
- Use language to directly combat misperceptions about research labs that may result in students from various backgrounds to select-out of participating
- Consider proactive types of recruitment efforts by faculty and lab members such as identifying and encouraging strong minority students in the classroom to apply for research opportunities
- Faculty can conduct a job analysis to identify the responsibilities and qualifications that are necessary to be successful in working on research projects and consider alternative ways to assess these skills in the selection process.
Evidence-based Solutions for Reducing the Effects of Implicit Gender Bias
Engendering Success in STEM
This booklet includes a series of papers on best practices for achieving greater gender diversity in STEM fields. Although a lengthy document, the information is presented in short, practical handouts that are worth reviewing.
Chapter 3. Fostering Inclusive Organizational Cultures discusses behavioral approaches and structural interventions to improve diversity and inclusion in an organization. Key action items:
- During the attraction and recruitment of team members consider the use of gender-neutral language and incorporate visual cues to show an inclusive climate
- In screening and selection, strategies such as anonymizing applicants when appropriate, practicing structure and consistency during interviewing and evaluating candidates “horizontally” (question by question across all applicants).
Chapter 4. Best Practices for Organizations discusses additional strategies such as measuring representation in your organization and de-biasing job advertisements.
Why Your ‘Objective’ Screening Rubric Produced Biased Results
Vaillaincourt, A. M. (2021). Why Your ‘Objective’ Screening Rubric Produced Biased Results. The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Although focused on executive hiring, the five suggestions provided for hiring more diverse team members can be applied to the recruitment of research team members at all levels. Key action items:
- Consider the various factors that explain a candidate’s rubric score (potential biases)
- Avoid ranking someone highly because they are likeable
- Beware of allowing a candidate’s charisma blind the search committee to a candidate’s lack of other critical leadership attributes
- Consider that perceptions of “professionalism” and “gravitas” are often based on white male characteristics
- Think about which candidates may offer new ways of thinking.
Letters of recommendation may be biased in systematically racial or gendered ways. When writing or reading letters, be mindful of potential biases such as:
- Length of letters
- Use of gender
- Doubt raisers (e.g., “While Sarah has not done a lot of this type of research…)
- Stereotypical language
- Grindstone language (e.g., adjectives that describe applicants as hard-working, and are more often used to imply effort for women and ability for men).
Gendered Words in Job Advertisements
Westcoast Women in Engineering, Science and Technology, Simon Fraser University
Gendered wording subtly signals who belongs and who doesn’t. This flyer provides examples of language in job advertisements and qualities of candidates such as the use of affectionate and cheerful and active and adventurous.
EDI Training
Resources for training team members on embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout the research team members recruitment and selection.
Unconscious Bias Education Modules
Toronto Initiative for Diversity & Excellence (TIDE)
TIDE’s education module series introduces the concept of unconscious bias, how it manifests in processes and procedures and how academic units can adopt more inclusive practices. The modules have been designed for everyone seeking education about unconscious bias and how it can affect assessments, decisions, and inclusive climates. They may be used as a self-guided education tool, a resource for committees to review prior to assessment activities or to facilitate discussions within groups.
EDI Education Calendar
University of Toronto, PSEC
A calendar with the wide range of EDI trainings/workshops available to the University of Toronto community across the tri-campus offered by the Anti-Racism and Cultural Diversity Office, the Sexual and Gender Diversity Office and the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) Office and the Office of Indigenous Initiatives.
