Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity Task Team
Photo credit: Gregory Piper / Ocean Image Bank
DEI Presentation at V.ECOP Days
DEI Presentation at V.ECOP Days
Vision
To create a diverse community of ocean professionals that fosters inclusivity, eliminates discrimination, and respects and celebrates the diversity of all participants, ensures that all participants have equal voices, opportunities, and rights to achieve their full potential, collaborate equally, and participate in decision-making processes, at all levels of projects and programmes during and beyond the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development.
Mission
To improve diversity, equity, and inclusion of underrepresented groups through efforts to enhance representation, raise awareness, activities to foster equity, and the inclusion of diverse ECOPs in international and national processes and associated activities of international institutions, programmes, and initiatives, such as under the UN Ocean Decade (e.g., National Committees, programmes).
Goals and Objectives
- Connect. Bring together and facilitate ocean professionals interested in furthering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity within international processes to develop a community and provide a safe space for having honest and open conversations on challenging issues.
- Listen. Scope & understand the dimensions and issues of diversity and inclusivity within the ocean community and specifically the challenges (and intersectionality) of ECOPs therein by listening to needs (understand what is most needed).
- Empower. Promote the inclusion and participation of more perspectives across the Decade programmes, projects and activities (e.g., people from different generations, ethnicities, gender, class, education, geographical regions, political affiliations, sexual orientation) through:
- education, training, communication, and awareness-raising of the importance of diversity and inclusion (communicate the why),
- providing resources, tools, recommendations, guidance, and support for including diverse viewpoints, which could include best practices or policies for inclusion, formulating the policies geared towards promoting a diverse community/environment/workspace,
- selecting and placing suitable ECOPs into leadership positions and developing a network of diverse ECOPs globally (teach people how to do it best).
Rationale
Diversity is a fundamental part of society, and should be reflected in ocean science and governance initiatives and workforce. Embracing diverse perspectives and skills can enhance innovation and creativity and foster the development of novel ideas and solutions to global challenges. An inclusive and welcoming working environment is a precondition for supporting a diverse workforce to the best of their abilities. Equity recognizes that conditions may not always be the same to provide everyone with equal opportunities, which can – if not identified – create or sustain underrepresentation.
As such, diversity, equity, and inclusion is central to any process or institution that is working toward transformative social change, such as the UN Ocean Decade (2021-2030). The Ocean Decade is pursuing a transformative research agenda that will support the development of the knowledge needed to move us toward a sustainable future, so it is critical to secure and promote opportunities to engage diverse voices throughout the entire Ocean Decade and associated processes. The ECOP DEI will ensure that the institutions’/publics’ attention is drawn to the importance of fostering the diversity, equity and inclusion in ocean institutions through identifying the existing challenges to be addressed and opportunities that can improve the DEI within the Ocean Decade.
Proposed Actions (2022-2024)
- Convene monthly meetings of interested professionals to continue to iteratively refine aims and objectives of the DEI group in order to ensure that group is aligned with all needs and inclusive of new perspectives.
- Conduct a DEI survey to understand the needs of the ocean professionals community and publish the results as a one-pager online.
- Perform a gap analysis and publish the results in a peer-reviewed journal.
- Develop a 1 pager on why and how to engage diverse ECOPs in endorsed Ocean Decade Programmes.
- Participate in Conferences and discussions.
- Collect resources in a central repository that is accessible and findable for everyone, such as on the ECOP website. This work will be in collaboration with the endorsed Ocean Decade programme Ocean Practices.
DEI Ocean Science Presentation
DEI Ocean Science Presentation
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