Our goal is to increase the diversity of people choosing and fulfilling their potential in the chemical sciences for a truly inclusive community.
Key aims of our strategy to 2025
- Collate, analyse and use data to ensure an evidence-driven approach.
- Investigate perceptions of who can be a chemical scientist.
- Support early career chemists encompassing all career routes to the profession.
- Ensure fair and equal progression for talented chemical scientists.
- Learn from, and share with, our global partners the insight, knowledge and tools to progress inclusion and diversity across the chemical sciences worldwide.
This strategy will run until 2025. To ensure that it has the desired impact, we will continue to develop a range of measures to monitor progress and the impact of our work. These include:
- Measuring the number of partners we successfully work with and provide expert advice to
- Engagement of key stakeholders and champions to foster change in the culture of chemistry
- The improvement in diversity resulting from our work
Download our inclusion and diversity strategy to 2025 here
Inclusion and Diversity Committee
The primary function of the Committee, operating under delegated authority from Council, is to ensure the RSC realises its full potential to advance excellence in the chemical sciences through inclusive practices that seek to increase the diversity of our community. The Committee’s purpose is not to monitor or evaluate internal (RSC) HR practices.
Our definition of inclusion and diversity
We define diversity broadly. All people living in the UK are protected by the Equality Act 2010, which legislates against discrimination based on the following protected characteristics:
- age
- disability
- gender reassignment
- marriage and civil partnership
- pregnancy and maternity
- race
- religion or belief
- sex
- sexual orientation
In addition to these, we recognise other characteristics within our definition of diversity:
- career path and stage
- communication style
- education
- experience
- first language
- geography
- job sector
- socioeconomic status