We Know What Needs to Change, So Why Isn’t It Happening?
Lessons from EuroHPC, UKRI and the HPC Community on Closing the EDI Implementation Gap
Across the HPC community, there is broad agreement that improving equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) matters. The good news is that, as a community, we often know what we should be doing, or how to get help, due to the wealth of guidance and expertise that has already been developed and curated. Yet, progress is slow. Why isn’t change happening? The challenge is no longer only understanding what we should do — it’s putting that knowledge into practice and driving real, impactful change.
This gap between intention and action is the “implementation gap”: the gap between knowing what to do and actually implementing it to make progress. This is exactly what our session at the Durham HPC Days focused on; what can we do to close this gap?
First, we opened the session with three short presentations introducing different contexts where EDI challenges have been identified, alongside the efforts made to address them. Then, participants in the room took part in interactive breakout discussions to identify and propose solutions at different levels of influence.
About the Authors
This session was led by members of the Women in HPC (WHPC) community!
WHPC is an international organisation working to build an inclusive supercomputing community by supporting underrepresented groups, providing mentorship, and raising career visibility. Our goal is to promote equality, diversity, and inclusion across the global HPC community, connect members through Chapters & Affiliates and events at major supercomputing conferences, working together to create welcoming spaces for women and underrepresented people to connect, collaborate and thrive in their chosen career.
This session was a collaboration between Eleanor Broadway (WHPC Executive Board) and members of the WHPC Cambridge & East Anglia Chapter: Marion Weinzierl, Jack Franklin, Tom Meltzer.
Short talk summaries
EDI: thoughts from EuroHPC by Luigi Del Debbio
Luigi presented on the gender gap in applications for HPC compute resources through EuroHPC. In fact, this gap has grown bigger in the past years. A potential solution that he is advocating for is to offer long-term (4-5 year) fellowships for minority groups. This is something that is already in place and working at the University of Edinburgh. However, he has not yet been able to acquire the necessary support for this from the higher levels of EuroHPC.
The talk raised discussions around whether the gender of the PI is the best metric to look at, or whether the wider project group should be considered, with the conclusion that the latter would give a similar result, and the PI has the greatest visibility.
EDI challenges in EPSRC Research infrastructure: Strategic Infrastructure by Charlotte Bell
Charlotte introduced the EPSRC’s Strategic Infrastructure Opportunity - a strategic investment to enhance UK scientific capabilities. So far there have been three Strategic Infrastructure calls which have included an accessibility plan pilot. This involved engaging with accessibility advisors in the panel process at both the pre-interview and interview stage. Using the feedback from the advisors, three main points were taken into consideration for future calls. Firstly, embedding accessibility fully into the assessment process to avoid the feeling of being ‘tagged on’, as well as to clarify the roles of the advisors. Secondly, to improve the guidance and process so as to make it as easy as possible, with guidance made public on their website as well as making additional training available for applicants. Finally, they aim to understand the outcomes of this process in the wider community so that the process can be refined in the future.
EPSRC is committing to working on improving their process in the future, through feedback from applicants as well as other sources of input from the wider community.
CAKE-CoSeC EDI Working Group: EDI for Real-World Workloads by Eleanor Broadway
Eleanor introduced the CAKE-CoSeC EDI Working Group, which aims to translate existing EDI guidance into meaningful, everyday action that real people working across the DRI+ landscape can use. The group is focusing on understanding community needs, developing ways to measure the impact of EDI initiatives, and translating existing resources into clear, actionable guidance that people can apply in their everyday work.
Discussion
Although each discussion group began with one of the three presentations, the conversations moved away from their specific topics, and discussed EDI in the workplace more generally.
What individuals can do
Creating an inclusive workplace is everyone’s responsibility. Participants highlighted the importance of listening to different perspectives, celebrating successes from all colleagues and advocating for others by sharing opportunities that would benefit them. It was also discussed how important it is to politely call out poor practice when it occurs, for example, highlighting a lack of diversity in event speaker line-ups so the organisers are aware for the next event and give others opportunities. Small, everyday actions were seen as an important way of driving cultural change and improving the retention of diverse talent by making the workplace a really nice place to work (for everyone!).
What leaders and managers can do
Leaders have a key role in embedding inclusive practices by recognising and valuing EDI work to highlight successes and help individuals benefit from their advocacy. Also to provide EDI and mental health awareness training, support flexible working and making events accessible to a wider range of people, for example by organising social events during working hours. Participants also highlighted the importance of focusing on staff retention and creating supportive environments where people want to stay.
What organisations and funders can do
Building on the examples presented by Luigi Del Debbio and Charlotte Bell, discussions focused on the need for sustained organisational support. Participants highlighted the importance of dedicated funding for EDI initiatives, which reminds us of the Move the Needle project which demonstrated that small measurable actions, when you are held accountable, can have a big impact.
Participants also advised funders to have greater transparency around processes, collecting data at all career stages to better understand the “leaky pipeline”, learning from successful approaches in other communities, and engaging younger, more diverse audiences. There was also discussion around diversity targets, improving the visibility of EDI initiatives, and addressing the stigma that can accompany targeted fellowships or recruitment schemes.
Conclusions and next steps:
One theme that was felt throughout all discussion groups is that EDI is not prioritised enough in the UK political landscape, and is at risk of being deprioritised further. Given this, the need to move from intention to implementation feels more important than ever.
The ideas and recommendations from the breakout discussions will be shared with the speakers to help inform their ongoing work and contribute to closing the implementation gap.