Diversity of people and thought

Maximising opportunities for creativity, excellence and innovation involves expanding and diversifying pathways to research participation. To address complex challenges, research requires diverse people, skills and a culture in which people can respectfully challenge and learn from one another.

Responsible Research Culture Framework

Download Monash’s Responsible Research Culture Framework here

What does a culture of diverse people and thought look like?

VALUES AND PRINCIPLES

  • Respecting, learning from and celebrating diversity in people, cultures, experience and views within and beyond the university.
  • Humility in acknowledging what we don’t know or understand, including different lived experiences.

EXPECTATIONS

  • Staff and students strive to open pathways to creativity, excellence and innovation across the breadth of the community.
  • Staff and students encourage meaningful and active participation in research teams, roles, practices and outcomes, including by acknowledging and addressing their own unconscious biases and their impacts on inclusion.
  • All members of our research community work to create safe spaces for team members to share ideas, disagree respectfully and contribute.
  • All staff and students conduct themselves in a manner that supports respectful working relationships with colleagues, recognising power imbalances with teams and between staff and students.

FORMAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND SYSTEMS

  • Compliance with the laws, policies and practices around behaviours, equal opportunities and anti-discrimination in the workplace.
  • Complaints and conflicts are addressed appropriately, as outlined in university policies and procedures.

BEHAVIOURS

  • All staff and students model responsible and inclusive behaviours, such as active listening (including to dissenting views), creating a culture of respectful disagreement, psycho-social safety, cultural competency and continuous learning.
  • Leaders or those with increased power and resources support junior and marginalised researchers and collaborators.
  • Recognise and respond to the power asymmetries that limit the potential to participate in research.
  • Engagement with the talents, perspectives and contributions that different people can make throughout research and innovation processes.

CREATING MEANING

  • Emphasise the value of the university as a diverse research ecology in which different disciplines, practices, people and forms of communication make a valuable contribution to the whole.
  • Recognising and celebrating inclusive practices.

Useful questions

  • Are all relevant voices present and heard in the research? If not, what support systems and resources can you put in place to ensure that those voices are empowered to participate meaningfully? (e.g. translation resources, financial support, other accommodations.)
  • Have you sought evidence of a range of views and opinions to ensure breadth of thinking?
  • How are you ensuring meaningful co-production early in and throughout the research process?
  • How are you practising reciprocity in research?
  • What strategies and practices can you employ to create a welcoming environment of respect and diverse thinking?
  • Have you sought to understand the expectations and capacity (financial, emotional and temporal) of team members and collaborators before placing additional burdens on them?
  • Have you learned about local mores and expectations around behaviours, language, communication and knowledge sharing before making contact with communities?