̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - diversity

Inclusion, innovation... and cocktail curation

skbf2 — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 10:45:19 +0000

Co-founder and CEO of Start Codon, Jason Mellad on helping healthcare start-ups thrive and why inclusion and diversity will change the world.

̽��ֱ��tulip hunter of Toktogul

lw355 — Fri, 09 Dec 2022 09:15:17 +0000

Brett Wilson's love of wild tulips has taken him to some of the most spectacular places in Central Asia, where he discovered a new species in Toktogul, Kyrgyzstan. His work has helped to uncover the plight of 53 tulips which have been added to the 'Red List' of threatened species.

̽��ֱ��student working to make education accessible to everyone

cg605 — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 11:50:50 +0000

Final-year chemist Shadab Ahmed reflects on his sabbatical year as CUSU Access and Funding Officer, the importance of role models, and how increasing diversity within universities could be the start of seeing real change in society as a whole.

Taking pride in our researchers

cjb250 — Fri, 05 Jul 2019 07:04:58 +0000

To mark LGBTSTEM Day, celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer scientists, engineers and mathematicians around the world, our researchers tell us why celebrating diversity is important – and why identities really do matter.

Making the numbers count: supporting and engaging women at every career stage

ed515 — Fri, 15 Jun 2018 08:00:00 +0000

Glass ceilings, glass cliffs, glass escalators… much has been written about the metaphorical glass barrier that stands invisibly yet solidly between women and high-level success across the economy.

It’s a description that exasperates Professor Sucheta Nadkarni from Cambridge Judge Business School.

“ ̽��ֱ��challenges faced by women in business are well documented and fiercely debated, and there’s a tendency for most of this talk to be negative. I call this the doom and gloom narrative – it’s about the barriers that women face and why women fail. Let’s change the conversation about gender equality to focus on the factors that help women
to succeed.”

Nadkarni is the lead academic on a major global research project that reported in the European Business Review last year on the factors that help women to succeed in corporate environments. ̽��ֱ��project gathered data from 1,071 companies in 42 countries, covering 56 industries. ̽��ֱ��information spanned a ten-year period, during which the average percentage of women on executive teams in sampled firms rose from 7.6% to just 11.7%.

̽��ֱ��study highlighted the many benefits that women in senior roles bring to companies. “It’s not just that hiring more women into senior positions is the right thing to do for gender equality, it’s also the smart thing to do from a business perspective,” says Nadkarni.

“We found that bringing more women to top roles can make a business function better, attract new customers and improve the bottom line. Women bring in diverse capabilities, diverse knowledge and new ways of thinking, which organisations need.”

With revelations about the gender pay gap making current headlines – three quarters of the 10,000 firms that have provided information pay men more than women – the inequality problems women continue to face in the labour market are gaining increasing attention.

However, Nadkarni is keen to focus on the future. “ ̽��ֱ��question we need to ask now is: what can we do about this situation of unequal pay and unequal representation, and how can we create a more optimistic, promising picture for our students and for the women who are just starting to rise up?”

Her study considered the economic, political, legislative and cultural forces that determine the number of women in the boardroom in different countries. ̽��ֱ��findings showed that the strongest drivers are ‘female economic power’ and a requirement for gender diversity in a country’s corporate governance code. Maternity provisions and female politicians providing a championing voice for women are also important factors.

Female economic power was measured by the expected years of schooling for women, and the percentage of women in the labour force. ̽��ֱ��results suggest that as women become more highly educated, and gain increasing levels of employment, they play a greater role in the marketplace. This then provides a powerful incentive for companies to hire more women onto the board, to reflect the market they cater for.

Corporate governance codes are a set of best practice recommendations, including gender diversity requirements. In the past decade, codes have been created in 64 countries. Among countries sampled in Nadkarni’s study, Colombia had the highest percentage of women in executive teams, at 28.5%, and Japan ranked bottom with 0.57%.

These codes, says Nadkarni, are one example of a ‘soft’ measure that has been shown to be effective in helping women to gain top roles in executive teams or on management boards. In comparison, ‘hard’ targets – such as the mandatory quotas enforced on companies by several countries to give a percentage of seats on the board to women – do little to support gender diversity, and can also have a negative effect on company cohesion.

“Although quotas can help to improve the representation of women on corporate boards, they do little to help women stay in senior positions long enough to make a real impact, and can have both positive and negative effects on turnover rates,” says Nadkarni. “They can also create a hostile environment, by conveying a sense of ‘preferential treatment’ rather than recognition of hard work, skills and capabilities.”

̽��ֱ��research also uncovered some of the loopholes that companies exploit to meet quota requirements. For example, in countries where family businesses are common, quotas are sometimes fulfilled by appointing female relatives to the board. In one case, an 86-year-old, the daughter of the founder of a company in Turkey, had been on the board since 1964.

Dr Jude Browne, the Jessica and Peter Frankopan Director of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, has constructed a different approach to addressing gender equality that focuses on encouraging diversity at all levels of an organisation rather than simply quota requirements for senior roles.

Browne suggests that “each organisation with significant pay gaps and other segregation patterns needs to begin by building a detailed picture of what it thinks its data ought to look like and, crucially, publish its goals.

“Too many organisations simply collect data, compile aggregate figures that don’t tell us that much and then look to other organisations to see how they compare. Given that a great many are failing to pick up real pace in addressing these patterns, the ‘comparison with competitors approach’ tends to generate a complacent comfort zone around what ought to be, in many cases, unacceptable.”

As Browne set out at the European Commission recently, the ‘Critical Mass Marker’ approach focuses on skilled women who are not advancing to the next level as quickly as one might expect – that is, where critical mass is not having the desired flow effect.

̽��ֱ��approach requires an organisation to undertake a detailed analysis of its workforce and mark out goals that proportionately relate each level to the next, taking critical mass failures into particular account. Organisations would then be required to analyse and explain their continued segregation patterns against their published goals. This might include analysing the different career profiles that various intersectional groups tend to have and the impact of dependant-related responsibilities, reassessing the benchmark criteria for promotion, and comparing those who have worked within the organisation for long periods to newcomers with very different workloads.

“ ̽��ֱ��Critical Mass Marker approach is not going to solve all the segregation problems that organisations tend to have,” she adds. “But it puts a greater onus on them to ensure those equipped with the relevant talents are able to move up and across institutional structures in a more effective and proportionate way than blanket quotas aimed solely at the top layers of management where we often only see the same few women.”

Nadkarni is also keen to see more women supported at every level, and would like to see action to increase the number of women in executive teams, not just on corporate boards.

“Corporate boards are important, but they only play an indirect role in influencing company strategies and performance, because they mainly have an advisory capacity,” she says. “ ̽��ֱ��decisions are made by the executive team. So, if we want companies to benefit, if we want women to really make an impact, then it’s the executive teams that matter.

“In this context, a quote that comes to mind is it’s not about ‘counting the numbers’, it’s about ‘making the numbers count’. In other words, it’s not merely the quantity of women in top positions that matters, but also whether policies are in place at various levels – company, government and corporate governance codes – to ensure that women can make
a true impact in such roles.

“Hopefully in the future we will watch the doom and gloom ebb away as the true benefits of gender equality become crystal clear to everyone.”

Inset image: read more about our research on the topic of work in the ̽��ֱ��'s research magazine; download a pdf; view on Issuu.

Researchers call for gender equality and career support for women in the workplace, and an end to “the doom and gloom narrative” over their limited numbers.

Hiring more women into senior positions is the right thing to do for gender equality. It’s also the smart thing to do from a business perspective

Sucheta Nadkarni

WOCinTech Chat

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Economic success drives language extinction

fpjl2 — Wed, 03 Sep 2014 09:26:39 +0000

New research shows economic growth to be main driver of language extinction and reveals global ‘hotspots’ where languages are most under threat.

̽��ֱ��study’s authors urge for “immediate attention” to be paid to hotspots in the most developed countries – such as north Australia and the north-western corners of the US and Canada – where conservation efforts should be focused.

They also point to areas of the tropics and Himalayan regions that are undergoing rapid economic growth as future hotspots for language extinction, such as Brazil and Nepal.

̽��ֱ��study is published today in the journal Proceedings of Royal Society B.

̽��ֱ��researchers used the criteria for defining endangered species to measure rate and prevalence of language loss, as defined by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

̽��ֱ��three main risk components are: small population size (small number of speakers), small geographical habitat range and population change – in this case, the decline in speaker numbers.

By interrogating huge language datasets using these conservation mechanisms, the researchers found that levels of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per capita correlated with the loss of language diversity: the more successful economically, the more rapidly language diversity was disappearing.

“As economies develop, one language often comes to dominate a nation’s political and educational spheres. People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold – economically and politically,” said Dr Tatsuya Amano, from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Department of Zoology.

“Of course everyone has the right to choose the language they speak, but preserving dying language is important to maintaining human cultural diversity in an increasingly globalised world.”

In the northwest corner of North America, the languages of the indigenous people are disappearing at an alarming rate. Upper Tanana, for example, a language spoken by indigenous Athabaskan people in eastern Alaska, had only 24 active speakers as of 2009, and was no longer being acquired by children. ̽��ֱ��Wichita language of the Plains Indians, now based in Oklahoma, had just one fluent speaker as of 2008.

In Australia, aboriginal languages such as the recently extinct Margu and almost extinct Rembarunga are increasingly disappearing from the peninsulas of the Northern Territories.

As the researchers point out, “languages are now rapidly being lost at a rate of extinction exceeding the well-known catastrophic loss of biodiversity”. Major international organisations such as the United Nations and Worldwide Fund for Nature are now actively engaged in the conservation of linguistic diversity.

Amano says the global meta-analysis produced by the team using the species criteria is designed to complement the more specific, localised examples featured in many linguistic and anthropological research.

Unlike species extinction, however, language diversity has a potentially saving grace – bilingualism. Previous research from Cambridge’s Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics has shown that children who speak more than one language have multiple advantages in education, cognition and social interaction.

“As economies develop, there is increasing advantage in learning international languages such as English, but people can still speak their historically traditional languages. Encouraging those bilingualisms will be critical to preserving linguistic diversity,” added Amano.

Thriving economies are the biggest factor in the disappearance of minority languages and conservation should focus on the most developed countries where languages are vanishing the fastest, finds a new study.

People are forced to adopt the dominant language or risk being left out in the cold

Tatsuya Amano

Vanishing Voices film, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Himalayan Shaman

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page. For image rights, please see the credits associated with each individual image.

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Top conservation issues to look out for in 2013

gm349 — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 15:01:53 +0000

A UK-led team of researchers has identified 15 issues that could affect the diversity of life on Earth in 2013. They include using synthetic DNA to genetically modify organisms, soaring demand for coconut water, and competition for land to grow plants for fish farming.

Other topics the researchers highlight include dam-building in the Andean Amazon, using coral nurseries to restore reefs, and the commercial use of short portions of antimicrobial proteins.

̽��ֱ��emerging issues are the result of an attempt to pinpoint threats, opportunities and developments that aren’t widely recognised, but which need further research in case they turn into big problems for biodiversity.

̽��ֱ��thinking behind the exercise is to identify potential concerns, so we can respond more effectively if the researchers’ projections prove accurate.

Indeed, so-called horizon scanning is used by private and public organisations to inform processes related to policy, risk assessment, strategic planning, and innovation.

"This kind of horizon scanning exercise can be useful to avoid situations where we’re ill-prepared to deal with the consequences. One example is biofuels. They were promised to be a green alternative to fossil fuels, but no-one anticipated that pristine rainforest would be cleared for them," explains Professor Bill Sutherland from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge who led this study.

Sutherland led similar exercises in previous years to figure out which issues most need conservationists’ attention, given limited research funds.

In this latest study, published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, he invited 19 experts to submit up to five little-known issues they thought could affect biodiversity in the near future. ̽��ֱ��group came up with 72, which – after some debating – they whittled down to 15.

Many of them relate to new forms of energy production, changes in how we produce or store food, and synthetic biology – the creation of new forms of life in the lab. Most sit squarely in the ‘threat’ camp, but a few could be seen as opportunities that might end up benefiting the diversity of life on Earth.

One includes using super-sensitive molecular techniques to extract tiny amounts of DNA from the environment to detect the presence of rare or invasive species. These techniques have been successfully used to detect a secretive frog and a salamander in the US, as well as invasive American bullfrogs at 38 places in France where before they were thought to exist in just seven.

̽��ֱ��scientists highlight other opportunities such as protecting and restoring tropical forests using tiny unmanned aerial vehicles. Remotely-controlled drones could be used to collect and plant local seeds. This approach is a lot cheaper than raising seedlings in nurseries then planting them out. And recent advances in GPS technology means the process could be automated.

Some topics like 3D printing or the rapid growth of concentrated solar power, while in many ways beneficial to the environment, could also have their downsides. ̽��ֱ��point is that right now, nobody knows how or even if these technologies will affect biodiversity.

"We hope horizon scanning will help us identify emerging threats to biodiversity before rather than after they've had a major impact," says Professor Ken Norris from the ̽��ֱ�� of Reading, NERC’s biodiversity theme leader, who co-authored the study.

"In this paper we’ve once again identified both new threats and opportunities presented by a number of emerging issues. It is perhaps telling however, that most of the effects we have on the natural environment continue to give rise to negative consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem services," says Professor Michael Depledge from the European Centre for Environment & Human Health, another co-author of the study.

̽��ֱ��study was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, the European Centre for Environment and Human Health and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

̽��ֱ��15 issues that could affect biodiversity in 2013

Rapid growth of concentrated solar power
Widespread development of thorium-fuelled nuclear power
Seabed located oil drilling and processing
Accelerating water cycle
Proliferation of hydropower in the Andean Amazon
Species loss as a driver of global environmental change
Vegetarian aquaculture feed
Rapid rise in global demand for coconut water
Detecting aquatic species with environmental DNA
Use of coral nurseries for reef restoration
Forest conservation and restoration by micro unmanned aerial vehicles
̽��ֱ��3D printing revolution
A link between biodiversity, allergy and autoimmune disease
̽��ֱ��commercial use of antimicrobial peptides
Synthetic genetics

Story courtesy NERC.

Researchers have identified 15 issues that could affect the diversity of life on Earth in 2013.

This kind of horizon scanning exercise can be useful to avoid situations where we’re ill-prepared to deal with the consequences.

Professor Bill Sutherland

Horia Varlan from flickr

Coconut

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