UWL BME - what's happened since
We began working with the University of West London team at the end of June 2022 on their Black Minority and Ethnic Early Career Researcher Conference co-hosted by King's College, London. The annual conference addresses the underrepresentation of black and minority ethnic staff in academia, especially in senior roles. It aims to help and empower young BME individuals through talks, networking and mentoring. It was chaired by its founder, Dr. Bernadine Idowu, an Associate Professor of Biomedical Sciences at UWL with a line-up of over 17 speakers.
This was a targeted campaign and key coverage included two opinion pieces by Dr. Bernadine Idowu one in The Big Issue and another in the Times Higher Education (THE) on inclusive peer mentoring for their THE Campus platform’s EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) section. Four hundred people attended either virtually or in person, the biggest turnout so far, with delegates from as far afield as South Africa. There was even live streaming of the conference at the University of Kent.