The Inclusion Initiative at the LSE is a new research centre
whose aim is to produce research that will help firms create more inclusive cultures,
by looking to ensure that everybody within a particular team gets heard and all voices of talent are maximised
and, separately, looking to see which voices are actually missing from the table
and are actively seeking solutions to what's commonly known as the pipeline problem.
If you remember that Director Beveridge, back in 1945, he established the National Health Service.
That was the issue of our times back then and now, in the 21st century,
diversity and inclusion is one of the important initiatives and issues that we have to address.
Anyone that wants to be successful.
Any organisation with an interest in the future, and having a bright future,
I think should care about the work The Inclusion Initiative are doing.
Behavioural Science is the art of systematically changing behaviour in predictable ways.
Typically when people do something on a daily basis, they think that their plans and intentions
guide their behaviour, but the reality is much different.
A behavioural science approach tries to uncover those and look at the drivers,
as well as trying to change those behaviours.
Groups are rarely inclusive. They'll often only contain people that are familiar and
exclude those that have different opinions and are outliers.
The Inclusion Initiative is an important development, to break down some of those barriers, to understand them and,
particularly, to use an evidence-based way to build a more collaborative, inclusive environment.
It's one of the first times that behavioural science is being brought into this field
and it's exciting to use a data-driven approach to try and better inclusion,
which is something I'm quite passionate about.
So the research that I'm doing for The Inclusion Initiative is on how artificial intelligence
impacts inclusion within the hiring process.
So, with AI, you can actually build models where you can account for these biases
and then you can minimise the impact of the biases on the hiring process.
I'm currently researching how leadership and different styles of leadership
impact on diversity and inclusion in organisations.
What sort of leader really can bring diverse talent to the table and include them in a way so they can
maximise their employees abilities.
My current research project is looking at labour force outcomes,
so things like unemployment and wages and trying to understand if certain groups in society
are being disadvantaged compared to others due to the current COVID-19 pandemic.
I'm researching how much venture capital is going to females,
to ethnic minority entrepreneurs and to those who haven't had traditional educational backgrounds.
I think that this is now the time when we can have a rethink on what actual data is available
outside of the firm which represent a genuine picture of how the firms are performing.
I'm excited to see The Inclusion Initiative formed at the LSE because LSE is the most
diverse university in the United Kingdom.
It also has a history of producing research that aims to
understand the causes of things and The Inclusion Initiative will do both.
We have perspectives on organisational psychology, on tech, on sustainability, on diversity and inclusion,
labour market stuff, well-being, health, so I think we really merge all those things together
and we're so connected to policy and the private sector and the public sector and the charitable sector.
I think this research can greatly improve companies hiring decisions and it can allow them
to hire better candidates and, in the end, as a result of this, also to make better profits.
We don't just want to publish in academic journals, we want to be producing materials
actively used by firms to help them move towards a more inclusive culture.
Overall, this is really about the city: making the city as competitive and as welcoming a place as it can be
and if you include everybody, you open the door to everybody, that's how the city can continue
dominating financial services worldwide.
Being inclusive and being diverse in practices such as recruitment
and the issuance of venture capital leads to greater returns.
Because, after all, when we have more inclusive cultures we do end up with more productive places of work.