Inclusion deficit: the impact of not engineering a world for everyone

Engineering is an integral part of our everyday lives. From personal devices, to the cars and trains that we use on the road network and railways, to medical equipment, and an array of household items, engineers have created the tools and technologies we rely on. So engineering is here for everyone. But is it serving everyone in our communities to the same extent?

Headshot of Yewande Akinola

Do we all fully benefit from the efforts of engineers?

In practice, unfortunately, many familiar engineering products do not take into account the diversity of their end users. And the resulting inclusion deficit means that businesses are also missing out on benefits.

Research by the Royal Academy of Engineering earlier this year highlights where engineering has fallen short in terms of diversity and inclusion – and the benefits of addressing that inclusion deficit. Not only are engineers themselves disproportionately white and male (with only 15.7% of UK engineers being women), but the solutions they develop sometimes fail to meet the needs of women, Black and minority ethnic people, and disabled people. This inclusion deficit can have potentially devastating consequences in the real world.

How Engineering Bias in Medical Devices and AI Technology Affects Communities

Pulse oximeters are widely used in medical care. These handheld devices send light waves through the skin to measure oxygenation of the blood. But readings are affected by the levels of melanin in the skin: an oximeter used on somebody with dark toned skin will read differently compared with a patient with light toned skin. A 2023 Independent Review on equity in medical devices found that pulse oximeters overestimate true oxygen levels in people with darker skin tones. Distressingly, they found evidence the bias in readings taken by pulse oximeter has been linked (in US healthcare) to “delayed recognition of disease, denied or delayed treatment, worse organ function and death in Black compared with white patients”. This problem could be resolved by appropriate calibration of the devices to account for skin tone, and could have been recognised far earlier if the testing of pulse oximeters, during their development, had included Black and Asian testers.

Meanwhile, while the hope for artificial intelligence (AI) technology in recruitment was to remove human bias in screening job applications, there is considerable concern that AI introduces its own biases to the process. Examples have been cited of AI systems with gender and ethnicity biases resulting in skewed recruitment pools, and AI sifting decisions with opaque rationale leading to seemingly arbitrary results. AI bias has been seen to crop up in various settings – for example, facial recognition that fails to ‘read’ Black people’s faces, or representational AI that generates stereotyped imagery. As this technology is being introduced at scale for recruitment exercises, it’s critical that attention is given to the nature of the data-set used to train the AI, the parameters set for screening CVs, the role of human intervention, and the diversity outcomes that result.

A further example concerns disabled people’s access to vital services, via the internet, in a world that increasingly relies on providing information, processes and solutions through ‘digital by default’. With some one in five people in the UK being disabled, businesses are missing out on potential revenue from disabled customers because of inaccessible websites. Scope’s 2019 report showed that half of people who had problems making purchases due to a poor digital experience, ended up not purchasing the product, while 48% found an alternative provider.

For engineering businesses, embracing diversity and inclusion is a moral, legal and social responsibility. It’s also strategically important from a business and economic perspective. In the end, this is about justice and fairness for everyone in engineering – and everyone affected by the work that engineers do.

Inclusive designs delivers innovative services

Attracting customers, and better serving a wider range of potential customers, is not the only way engineering businesses can benefit from fixing the inclusion deficit in our engineering profession.

Firstly, more diverse engineering teams, working in an inclusive environment, tend to perform better in their roles. As reported in The EDI Engine, published by the Royal Academy of Engineering, over half of UK engineers surveyed said that feeling included at work increased their motivation – and 45% said it improved their performance. As many as 81% of engineers say they prioritise diversity when choosing their employer – so when engineering firms prioritise diversity and inclusion, they increase their access to engineering talent. Not only will more inclusive companies benefit in their recruitment efforts, but the retention of valuable staff will improve – for example, Gen Zs and Millennials at diverse companies are 42 percentage points more likely to stay beyond five years than those who consider their firm un-diverse.

Secondly, diverse engineering teams with a focus on inclusive design can deliver better and more innovative products and services. The EDI Engine report noted that companies with greater diversity have 19% more revenue from new products and services than companies with below-average diversity scores, according to a cross-country study. More diverse and inclusive teams had 121% more patent citations than un-diverse teams in a US study.

Attention to diversity and inclusion can also help with securing investment, working with public sector buyers, making your supply chain more resilient, fulfilling organisational values and upholding your reputation, protecting the health and safety of staff, and avoiding costly legal disputes.

EDI is a business imperative

So, I need engineering businesses to take action and address EDI in their organisations – it’s a business imperative. Take the issues to your senior team; assess your data and set goals; integrate EDI in your strategy. Look into the Royal Academy of Engineering’s programmes and initiatives and draw in the external expertise that will inform your development.

For engineering businesses, embracing diversity and inclusion is a moral, legal and social responsibility. It’s also strategically important from a business and economic perspective. In the end, this is about justice and fairness for everyone in engineering – and everyone affected by the work that engineers do.