Equity, Diversity and Inclusion: Action Plan and Resources for Recruiting, Hiring and Retaining Canada Research Chairs at Queen's University

  Queen's Commitment to Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

Queen’s is committed to excellence in research and research training for the benefit of Canadians and to achieving a more equitable, diverse and inclusive Canadian research enterprise. Queen’s University has in place many institutional supports for these values and regularly monitors and reports on its progress in achieving inclusive goals. Queen’s University demonstrates its commitment to advancing diversity and inclusion by ongoing self-study and by implementing best practices on an ongoing basis. The research community  at Queen's is committed to and recognizes that building a culture of diversity is a socially responsible approach that actively removes discrimination and barriers to inclusion to provide benefits that reach beyond Queen's University. At Queen's, we recognize that diversity advances research for the greater good by valuing alternate perspectives, thereby unlocking creative potential and stimulating novel collaborations. To that end, Queen's values its responsibility to promote equity in the employment of women, racialized/visible minorities, Indigenous peoples, and persons with disabilities; Queen's is an advocate for equity within the Canada Research Chairs Program. Queen's commits to evaluating representation of the four Designated Groups listed above within its Canada Research Chair Program and commits further to striving proactively to meet and to maintain its equity targets among the exceptional researchers recruited to this program.

(Approved by Queen's University Senate, November 28, 2017.)

Queen’s strategies for raising awareness of its commitment to and the benefits of EDI within the CRCP and the broader research enterprise include:

• Queen's 2020-21 Employment Equity Plan .
• The Queen's Equity Appointments Process (QEAP): an innovative web application that collects, tracks, and reports on employment equity data.
• The creation of an Associate Vice-Principal (Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion) and Associate Vice-Principal (Indigenous Initiatives and Reconciliation) to enact EDI across the university.
• The Principal’s Declaration  of Commitment to Address Systemic Racism through the critical examination of the roles each one of us may play in its perpetuation and in the practices and policies that may support persistent inequities.
• The creation of the Indigenous Council  and the University Council on Anti-Racism and Equity (UCARE) and its Faculty and Staff Recruitment, Retention and Support (FSRRS) Sub-Council.
• The creation of an Indigenous Research Advisor position to support Indigenous-related research and to train and support researchers in Indigenous epistemologies and community-based research. 
• The Diversity and Equity Assessment and Planning (DEAP) Tool , developed by Queen’s Equity Services: a self-audit tool for internal Units to better understand the environments and climate relating to equity and diversity in their Units.
• The creation of the CRC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion working group to generate further tactics in support of EDI initiatives, including the development of EDI in Research Design  training tools for researchers.

We invite you to view the   EDI Progress Report (PDF 926 KB) for more information on these and many more exciting initiatives at Queen’s University.

 Monitoring, Reporting, and Addressing Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Concerns in Research

With oversight from the Provost and the Deputy Provost (Academic Operations and Inclusion), the Equity Office monitors progress, and reports regularly to the faculty union, the Deans, and the senior administration on progress toward increasing the representation of designated groups in the university’s academic ranks. These progress reports also form the basis of discussion for improving employment equity and may also be used to make policy recommendations to the Queen’s Senate.

During the recruitment process, the Equity Office, with the assistance of the Equity Representative, provides the Appointments Committee with confidential information on the diversity of the applicants who have applied to the position, and informs the Committee on how diverse the applicant pool remains as the Committee goes through the process of creating a long list of candidates, a short-list, a rank of applicants who are considered suitable for the job and finally, hiring.  This information shows the academic unit whether equity targets have been met and allows units to develop a strategy to meet those targets.

The Equity Office staff includes the University Advisor on Equity and two Equity Officers who are available to address concerns during hiring and planning; they ensure that the appropriate senior administrators are engaged in addressing any concerns and, when needed, that an appropriate process to resolve concerns is enacted.

 Questions on Equity and Diversity in Research?

For more information on the implementation of Queen’s CRC Equity Action Plan or Queen’s equity, diversity and inclusion agenda, please contact one of the following individuals:

•  Deputy Provost (Academic Operations and Inclusion)
•  University Advisor on Equity
•  Vice-Principal Research