There’s a lot you can do right away. Start by creating a dedicated EDI file. Then begin filling it with the following suggested content:

• Gather a few references that describe the challenges and barriers in your discipline faced by diverse groups seeking to participate as researchers.
• Add information about challenges and barriers related to your specific research program, institution, and location, as applicable.
• Make a list of past actions you’ve implemented, such as inclusive recruitment processes or mentoring initiatives, and think about how effective they were in practice, trying to identify what worked and where additional efforts are needed.
• Begin identifying concrete future actions to help address the barriers and issues identified in the EDI literature relevant to your discipline.
• Update yourself on the latest EDI information and training resources made available through your Department, College, and across the University, or through national or international bodies relevant to your area of research.
• Take relevant EDI training that’s available, even if it’s not required – note down the ideas for action and best practices you obtain.
• Build your EDI file over time so that you can draw on it at application time.

EDI considerations are essential to ensure equal opportunity to participate in research work. Without conscious attention to inclusion, barriers to equal opportunity related to historic and present-day discrimination may continue to prevent equal participation. Research excellence is also strengthened through EDI considerations because diverse research teams have been shown to deliver greater innovation. Understanding the EDI implications of your research design is also important. Please see EDI and Research Design FAQs.

No. Examples of good paragraphs can certainly help shed light on the expectations of granting agencies. However, they tend to have the effect of narrowing ideas along the directions outlined in the examples. This would run counter to the effective EDI actions that create actual change, i.e., approaches or action plans custom-developed for each team and research program based on their specific challenges.

It is true that some EDI practices come to mind more readily than others. However, since researchers are asked to identify challenges and barriers specific to their program, research area or institution, this will result in personalizing the texts. This is the most effective way to ensure the progression of intentions into action. Researchers are asked to think about different ways of doing things and to explain an approach or game plan adapted to their reality. Note that granting agencies know customized approaches are more likely to be implemented.

There are four aspects to consider:

• Team composition and trainee recruitment processes
• Research work environment and culture
• Mentoring, training, and access to development opportunities
• Roles of team members in the research process

A team can be diverse in terms of identity and discipline.

• Identity diversity refers to the individual identities of team members related to: gender, ethnicity, race, sexual orientation, indigeneity, language, age, socio-economic background, etc.
• Disciplinary diversity refers to the training and expertise of team members, such as: mechanical engineering, psychology, marketing, photonics, technology instruction, etc.

Note: The federal and provincial granting agencies often refer to the designated groups in connection with diversity. These are groups of people who face persistent barriers to employment. In Canada, the designated groups according to the Employment Equity Act are women, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities and visible minorities. However, it must be remembered that diversity does not refer only to the designated groups.

No. It’s about the equitable and inclusive processes by which your team is formed and operates. It’s not about the representativeness of your team, it’s about the EDI competence and culture of your team. Do not specify or allude to the personal identities of your team members as this may contravene their right to privacy. Instead, it is recommended to describe:

1. The challenges or barriers to recruiting a diverse team and to establishing equitable processes and an inclusive working environment; and
2. The action plan adapted to the research team to overcome these challenges and obstacles.

Note that review committees do not judge the composition or representativeness of the team, but rather the processes put in place to support diversity.

There are three key considerations:

• Run equitable and transparent selection processes: Make sure that systemic barriers to diversity have been identified and removed, and that the process applied is transparently communicated.
• Threshold of competence and skills: Establish a threshold of competence and skills at which an individual is deemed capable of succeeding in the position to be filled. Make the final selection from among the pool of people who meet this threshold to complete the team.
• EDI training: Make sure that members of the hiring committee are aware of unconscious biases and other systemic barriers to the hiring and advancement of persons belonging to designated groups. If necessary, seek out someone with EDI expertise to act as an EDI champion on your committee.

The answer to this question has three parts:

• Beyond diversity: The fact that a team is diverse does not mean that its members are necessarily unaffected by unconscious biases, exclusion, inequity, etc. This is why team diversity is only one component of EDI in training and research. Each action plan should therefore also address the inclusive practices of team leaders and how equity is ensured in team management processes.
• Random chance or not: The people reviewing a grant application are not in a position to know whether the current situation within a team is a result of random chance, or of actions that were carried out. So, even if a team is currently diverse, it is important to describe the action plan in effect for sustaining a diverse team over the years.
• Beyond the research team: It is also possible to get involved outside the research team with other targeted audiences, such as high school students, in order to promote one’s area of research (e.g., outreach efforts) and generally attract a greater diversity of people and profiles.

Below we offer RSO guidance on inclusive language in grant applications but always encourage applicants to refer to specific grant guidelines in addition to our guidance.

Identifying a problem or a puzzle and framing a research question are typically the first steps in research design. Assumptions and worldviews underpin all research questions, including assumptions about whether and how sex, gender, and diversity apply to the research topic. EDI-informed research questions re-examine assumptions and ensure that research findings are relevant to society, rigorously tested, and ethically sound.

Sex, gender, and diversity can have implications for your research design in at least three different ways: 

1. Sex, gender, and diversity are variables that directly affect the outcomes of interest. For example, many technical and environmental topics would benefit from research that integrates sex, gender, and diversity as variables. In the case of research on strategies to minimize waste production, optimize waste management, and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions, it has been recognized that sex, gender, and diversity are related to differences in waste production and management behaviours [11].
2. The needs of the population(s) affected by your research vary based on sex, gender, and diversity. Many research topics appear to not directly engage with sex, gender, or diversity as variables. However, new technologies and innovations researched in apparently “neutral” research settings will ultimately be deployed in the real world, where the needs of populations and societies vary along the lines of sex, gender, and other aspects of diversity. For example, it’s been shown that new technologies, such as agricultural innovations, can lead to unequal benefits, or even harms, when gender norms are not considered [12]. Conversely, conscious consideration of gender and diversity norms can lead to transformative approaches that create greater social equality. 
3. The sex, gender, and diversity content of your research topic can affect the diversity of the researchers who are attracted to joining your research team. In one case, a shift in the research priorities of a mechanical engineering lab led to an increased number of women working in the lab. This was due to a change in focus toward fluid mechanics with human health applications of importance for women. [13]

Ideally, you need to able to be able to do two things:

• Articulate how sex, gender, and diversity relate to your study. Reflect on the diversity of populations in or related to your research and how the research question and/or methodology could be adapted. Consider learning more about and applying gender-based analysis plus (GBA+). See Additional Resources for more information.
• Consider how all relevant aspects of the research design could be strengthened by integrating EDI considerations, from the framing of research questions to dissemination of results. Be prepared to explain your rationale about how you considered sex, gender, and diversity and the implications.

While some research designs may not involve sex, gender, or diversity as variables, have you considered who is involved in the design of research questions, the conduct of the research, and the dissemination of results? If you can find no intersection between your research and sex, gender, and diversity, you will need to explain how and why sex, gender, and diversity do not apply to your research design.

Ask yourself the questions in this Sex, Gender, and Diversity Research Design Questionnaire [14] to help you reflect on when, where, and how sex, gender, and diversity interact with your research design.