As a co-investigator in the University’s ESRC-funded Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, Dr Katy Sian is responsible for embedding the principles of equality, diversity and inclusivity into every aspect of its research. Here she explains how this led her to create an Anti-Racist Research Toolkit that should become an essential read for every researcher in the University and beyond.

Tell us how you ended up creating the Anti-Racist Research Toolkit

Questions of racial bias have an obvious relevance to the work we do at the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, which is all about reshaping how the police and other organisations work together to reduce harm among vulnerable people in society.

That means we have a duty to eliminate unconscious racism from our research as well – both in terms of the structure and culture of the Centre, and in relation to how we design and carry out our projects. Making sure this happens is one of my roles as the Centre’s EDI lead – and it has been the subject of much of my own research. As a result I found that in meetings and conversations I was advising colleagues on how to achieve research that is free from racism.

When I saw the funding call from Research England for work on ‘Enhancing Research Culture’, it seemed like an opportunity to develop my expertise and experience into something more practical and available to all researchers: the Anti-Racist Research Toolkit was born!

Who is the toolkit for?

It’s for everyone involved in research. It started out as something for my research centre, but I have deliberately made it useful for researchers, research leaders and professional support staff across the University and the sector. You don’t have to be involved in research that’s directly about racism. In fact, I think you could apply the principles in the toolkit to address other forms of vulnerability and inequality, such as, say, disability.

What do you mean by the label ‘anti-racist’?

Well, for your research to be ‘anti-racist’, it needs to take active steps to identify, avoid and counteract all the complex and nuanced ways in which racism can creep into your work. That means thinking really hard about every aspect of your research – the question you choose to ask, the design of your study, and the real-world impact you are hoping to achieve. The conceptual, the methodological, and the practical. For real transformative change, I believe you need to look at all three together.

How do researchers make their research anti-racist?

That’s exactly the question that the toolkit answers. And it’s the question that always came up in my conversations with colleagues. People want to do more. Much more. They just don’t know how. The toolkit is a practical guide for all researchers. It sets out the questions researchers need to ask themselves, the steps they can take to embed ‘anti-racist’ practice into their work, and – more broadly – the steps that research centres can take to make this part of their culture.

One thing that really leaps out of the toolkit is the importance of the relationship between the researcher and the community. Why does that matter so much?

I think one of the best ways to make your research anti-racist is to think about the outcome you are hoping to achieve. Don’t think of your research as a means of producing academic papers. Think about how it can benefit the community. When you come at your research with that mindset, it makes you ask a lot of other good questions along the way.

It encourages you to engage with the community throughout the process, finding out what research questions they really care about, inviting them to co-design the research process, and considering ways to share the findings in a way that means something to them. Too often, vulnerable communities can end up feeling exploited as passive sources of data, with no say in what the research is about, and little access to the findings. Anti-racist research is about giving these communities a stake in the research, making them active players, and delivering tangible benefits.

What do you hope are the next steps for the toolkit?

I want the toolkit to be used as widely as possible. One thing I’d love to see happen would be for it to form part of a welcome pack for every new PhD student at the University. Making improvements to a research culture takes time, but I think that would be a great starting point to making this kind of thinking second nature.
My research is centred on social justice and I love the possibility of achieving change. Anti-racist research allows us to imagine a better world. I want to give people the tools to make it happen and this toolkit is the starting point.

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