We’ve just completed our first comprehensive EDI strategy review, measuring our progress against the ambitious goals we set. This has shown us what it will take to succeed and we’re committed to embedding these success factors into every aspect of our strategy. Reflecting on what has helped drive our success and what has stood in the way, we believe some of the most important and cross-cutting enablers for advancing EDI at Nesta are:
- Setting clear goals and targets that align closely with our overall strategy and reflect the issues most pertinent societally and to staff.
- Collecting and using good data to make informed and objective decisions around how to drive progress, and whether our efforts are working.
- Partnering with teams and leaders that have accountability over relevant programmes or processes, to integrate EDI (limiting standalone initiatives).
- Building and maintaining wide support from people of all backgrounds and all levels of the organisation.
Where these elements have been firmly in place, we have made meaningful progress over the last three years. We have successfully driven an increase in our staff diversity, for example, by setting clear goals, having a strong approach to data, delivering change in close partnership with the people team – who are equally accountable for our progress, and benefitting from wide senior leadership support.
On the other hand, we have struggled to make as much headway where one or more of these key enablers has not been in place, for example, understanding the distributional impacts of our research and early-stage work on minoritised communities, and seeking to increase supplier diversity. We are therefore making a few changes to sharpen our focus, align our organisation, and bolster our ability to deliver on our EDI ambitions. These changes are discussed in the sections below.
An update on our recruitment targets
This year, we’ve made strides in some traditionally challenging areas: for the first time, a quarter of our staff come from minoritised ethnic backgrounds. Yet, we recognise that there’s more work ahead — particularly in increasing senior minoritised ethnic representation. We are also exploring ways to strengthen representation and inclusion of people from lower SEBs, having not yet made significant strides forward in this area.
| Fig. 1 | March 2022 | July 2023 | July 2024 | 2025 Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black, Asian, and minority ethnic | 18% | 21% | 25% | 25% |
| Disability and health condition | 28% | 22% | 17.5% | 20% |
| LGBTQ+ | 12% | 14% | 11% | Not < 5% |
| Women | 57% | 62% | 62.5% | Not < 50% |
| Lower socioeconomic background | 13% | 19% | 16% | 17.3% |
Pay equity and performance processes
| Fig. 2 | Apr 2022 | June 2023 | Jun 2024 | Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Gender pay gap (median) Excluding CEO |
14.9% 14.9% |
7.0% 5.9% |
6.6% 5.2% |
0% |
|
Ethnicity pay gap (median) Excluding CEO |
11.9% 12.9% |
14.5% 14.5% |
11.6% 12.8% |
0% |
This reduction in the ethnicity pay gap is a direct result of improvements and enhancements to some of our key people processes. We have:
- introduced diversity targets for our interview shortlists
- implemented interventions in our performance management process to ensure equitable treatment for minoritised groups, including reviewing proposed salary increases through an EDI lens at three separate junctures
- involved an ‘inclusion conscience’ in all calibration meetings
- conducted a thorough EDI check and analysis before the final executive meeting.
Our initiatives have delivered positive results. By eliminating barriers in recruitment and performance, we achieved our ethnicity recruitment target a full year ahead of schedule, and now plan to keep pushing this further. Moreover, this year, 39% of promotions were awarded to employees from minoritised ethnic backgrounds – outperforming the percentage of staff from minoritised ethnic backgrounds. Similarly, 56% of pay increases went to women, on par with organisational representation. By fostering equality of opportunity, we’ve made meaningful strides towards greater equality of outcomes.
Inclusion at Nesta
Our latest staff engagement survey, conducted in September 2023, showed encouraging progress in fostering a sense of belonging, with 64% of staff reporting a positive sense of belonging — an increase of seven points from the previous year. Among Asian colleagues, sense of belonging was even higher – at 75%. We are hopeful for continued improvement in our upcoming engagement survey, scheduled for October.
In parallel, we are updating our approach to EDI learning across Nesta. As the organisation matures, we’re moving beyond basic awareness of inclusion and identity towards embedding inclusive habits in our everyday work. To support this shift, we are piloting new onboarding and learning programmes in October with staff from diverse backgrounds, helping us determine their effectiveness before deciding on broader implementation.
As illustrated in Figure 1, socioeconomic diversity remains an area where further progress is needed. Recent focus groups revealed that while representation is crucial, inclusion is equally vital. Participants, particularly those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, shared their reluctance to openly discuss these issues, often reflecting on years spent masking their identities in various workplaces in an effort to assimilate — efforts that are not easily undone. To address this, we will introduce questions in our upcoming engagement survey that will allow us to disaggregate the data by socioeconomic background. This will help us develop a targeted action plan, alongside assessing pay gaps and progression rates by socioeconomic background, just as we currently do for gender and ethnicity.
