Diabetes doesn’t affect everyone equally. A person’s ethnic group, where they live, what language they speak and many other factors all affect the care they get, how well they can manage their diabetes, their long-term health, and their chances of getting type 2 diabetes.
We’re determined to involve more people from diverse backgrounds at every stage of research. This helps us focus on funding and supporting research that truly makes a difference for everyone affected by diabetes. Here’s our 5-year action plan to improve Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in our research.
Ensure our funding process is inclusive, fair and transparent
We’d like to remove barriers to success for all researchers who apply for our funding.
We’re looking at who applies and who’s successful based on ethnicity, socioeconomic background, gender, and caring responsibilities. And we hope to share this data with you in 2025.
We’re recruiting members from diverse backgrounds to sit on our Funding Committees and Panels, who make decisions about the research we fund.
Fund research that addresses health inequality and is relevant to people with or at risk of diabetes from all backgrounds
We aim to fund more research that tackles health inequalities in diabetes. In particular, more translational research that can help to change the health system and improve care for people with diabetes.
We’ve announced a highlight notice calling for proposals which seek to address health inequality. And we’ll embed a focus on health inequalities and addressing diversity in research across all our future funding calls.
Inspire and enable current and future researchers of all backgrounds to work in diabetes
We’re committed to providing support and mentorship to underrepresented groups in diabetes research. And to identify and address barriers in accessing Diabetes UK funding. Our goal is to attract more students and retain more researchers from diverse backgrounds in diabetes research.
In 2024, we partnered with Windsor Fellowship to launch of our first Black Leaders in Diabetes schemes. These aim to support researchers from Black backgrounds and address their underrepresentation in diabetes research in the UK.
Next, we’ll review and scale up the Black Leaders programme in the coming years.
We’ll also continue engaging with other underrepresented groups in diabetes research to better understand barriers to funding and explore ways to address them. We aim to provide more tailored career support to researchers from ethnic minority backgrounds, such as mentoring and access to leadership programmes, through partnerships.
Ensure that the outcomes of diabetes research are relevant to all affected by diabetes
We’ll set the agenda to encourage Diabetes UK funded studies, where appropriate, to involve a diverse population of research participants. And we want to make sure people from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to take part in diabetes research.
The ‘INVISIBLE’ campaign
We worked with eight health charities, two community organisations, and eight people with lived experience to co-produce a film that raises awareness about the importance of diversity in health research. This project is led by Egality, a community engagement agency that exists to improve health equity.
Our collective aim is to increase participation in research among people from diverse ethnic groups ultimately improving health treatments and services for everyone. The film features the brilliant Duke Al Durham, who lives with type 1 diabetes, and uses spoken word to highlight why diversity in research matters.
We’re working with the Association of Medical Research Charities to develop cross-sector guidelines to promote diversity in clinical trials. These guidelines will be shared with all researchers seeking Diabetes UK funding.
Guiding our research through diverse lived experience
It is important that our work helps everyone with diabetes, and we're very keen to hear from a wider range of people. The Diabetes Inclusive Community Engagement group, a subgroup of the Diabetes Research Steering Groups, have put together this survey to hear about what is important to you when it comes to diabetes.
Your experiences will inform the questions we ask scientists, ensuring their work addresses issues important to all communities.
Please fill out the survey here.
We’re committed to including people from a wide range of backgrounds in conversations through our research panels and events. We’re also carrying out an equality impact assessment for all our research events.
