After a competitive application process, 12 engineering businesses have joined the Royal Academy of Engineering’s new programme to provide impactful interventions that support inclusive leadership in an engineering context.

The Inclusive Leadership Programme is the result of a six-month scoping and consultation project involving 60 engineering industry experts from organisations across the UK. They contributed valuable insights to help the Academy develop a framework to deliver a range of interventions to enhance inclusion in engineering.

The Academy’s recent report on inclusive cultures showed that the UK engineering profession needs to accelerate its drive to become more inclusive if the UK is to continue to be a key player in the global race for engineering skills. The leaders of an organisation play a critical role in the creation of its culture and those at the most senior levels are particularly influential and therefore key to growing an inclusive culture.

The Inclusive Leadership Programme is an exciting opportunity for participating organisations to lead the engineering profession towards a more inclusive future. The 12 businesses chosen for the pilot have each assembled a multidisciplinary team of four individuals: three who are early-, mid-, and senior-career leaders, along with a Human Resources professional.

Over the next 18 months, team members will have access to knowledge and guidance on inclusive leadership including through in-depth inclusive leadership training; reciprocal mentoring; sponsorship; coaching and peer-to-peer workshops. The teams will apply their learning by creating and implementing an inclusion project focused on increasing inclusivity within their team, products or services.

The participating companies are:

• ABL
• AB Dynamics
• British Pipeline Agency
• Costain
• Evolito
• ITP Aero UK
• Mott Macdonald
• National Grid ESO
• Rolls-Royce SMR
• Thales
• The Manufacturing Technology Centre
• Zurich Engineering

The Academy will deliver the programme with the assistance of a consortium of organisations: Included (an inclusivity consultancy); Honne (professional coaching specialists); and The Social Innovation Partnership (evaluation experts).

The Inclusive Leadership Programme is part of the Academy’s broader efforts to support the engineering industry in embracing diversity and inclusive practices.

Joanna Whiteman, Head of Diversity and Inclusion at the Royal Academy of Engineering, says: “To truly move the dial on inclusion we need to be bold in our exploration of what works. We are keen to embrace opportunities to mix new and well-established interventions in pursuit of learning from successes and challenges which arise.

“Aligned with our strategic aims of fostering talent and diversity, this initiative holds great promise. We look forward to scaling the valuable lessons learned from the Inclusive Leadership pilot, extending its impact to reach a multitude of businesses seeking to build inclusive workforces.”