The first collective benchmarking across engineering and science professional took place in summer 2017 against the D&I Progression Framework described below. Twenty professional engineering institutions and 21 Science Council member bodies self-assessed against the benchmark and key findings are that:
- There is a lot of similarity in patterns of self-assessment
- Governance and leadership is highlighted as an area of strength
- D&I performance is weakest in education and training, accreditation and examinations, and in prizes, awards and grants
- Women are better represented on boards, as chairs of board committees and in the membership of science professional bodies than PEIs
- Black Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) people are better represented on the boards of PEIs than of scientific professional bodies, although overall most participating professional bodies across engineering and science have no BAME people in senior leadership
- Barriers to progress include lack of data, lack of resources and the challenge of the demographic starting point, in terms of gender and ethnicity
More information on benchmarking findings can be found in the combined engineering and science report and the professional engineering institution report below.
A separate report on the performance of scientific bodies can be found on the Science Council website.