It is not enough to be ‘not racist’. Anti-racism goes beyond thinking that racial prejudice is wrong: it understands that racism is systemic across all structures of society. We need to be active in dismantling racism and avoiding complacency at and in our work.
The SGDP Anti-Racism Working Group strives for the dismantling of all instances of racism within the department, at structural and individual levels. To be effective, anti-racist work must be shared and maintained across the department, at all levels of seniority. Our core focus is to help identify, propose, instigate, and support change consistent with an anti-racist agenda within the SGDP Centre. We aim to share rather than absorb responsibility for anti-racist activities; we will support the executive committee in their efforts to increase diversity, inclusion and equity for all within our community, extending to all intersections within racialised groups. Equality, diversity and inclusion are described as the cornerstones of the King's Strategic Vision 2029, and we seek to uphold these values, in line with the wider work of the IoPPN Race Equality Network.
Our commitment
- We will support staff and students to listen sensitively, empathise, discuss, and learn about race and racism.
- We will promote anti-racist values to the executive committee, helping them to prioritise these.
- We will provide feedback on our work to the SGDP Centre community at all centre meetings (held termly).
- We will hold fortnightly group meetings to discuss progress and plans. These meetings remain open and inclusive, for any members of the SGDP Centre community to join.
- We will support, plan, propose, and instigate tangible initiatives to promote diversity and equality of opportunity among students and staff at all levels of seniority. This will include collaborating and engaging with wider IoPPN anti-racism activities, to share learning and progress.
Please join our group
Please join us to ensure that our work benefits from the knowledge, opinions, and perspectives of individuals across the SGDP Centre. Anyone working or studying at the SGDP Centre can join the MS Team to stay in the loop, without committing to attending all meetings.
We recognise that the topics we discuss can be triggering and upsetting, impacting different group members in different ways. These are not passive intellectual topics, and it can be exhausting to do this type of work as a person of colour. It takes time to install the correct support and find solutions. We commit to being mindful of the need to avoid burdening people from racially minoritised groups, and of the potential for triggering racial trauma.
This is a learning process, requiring constant reflection and challenging of assumptions that are so deeply ingrained in our practice and institutions. To join or hear more, contact any team member or email antiracism-SGDP@kcl.ac.uk
Current subgroups and ongoing projects
(last updated June 2023)
(1) SGDP Centre protocol
This subgroup aims to help develop and embed procedures and practices for the SGDP Centre that are consistent with an anti-racism agenda. The subgroup aspires to identify and support the executive committee to prevent racist research and recruitment practices, facilitate opportunities for research teams to improve, and develop and maintain support systems for those from racialised communities. Ongoing projects include:
- Development of a preferred language glossary for all staff and students
- Surveying SGDP Centre executive committee and staff and student groups, to capture current perceptions, opinions, and knowledge about race and racism at the Centre
- Developing support structures for lab groups and early career researchers, helping them commit to anti-racist practices in their work and group culture
- Developing a new application form, procedure, and advertising method for placement students
(2) SGDP Centre internal events and communication
This subgroup aims to organise events on anti-racism, including talks, training opportunities, and social events, for members of the SGDP Centre and the wider King’s community. This subgroup is responsible for communicating our progress and planned events to the SGDP Community, through our fortnightly newsletter. KCL talks organised and/or promoted by our group include:
(3) SGDP Centre external events and wider opportunities
This subgroup aims to provide mentoring, allyship, training, and communication for people and organisations outside of King’s. This subgroup aims to demystify academia and research careers, inspiring and improving accessibility for a more diverse group of students.
Ongoing projects include:
- Developing work experience, training, and mentoring opportunities for prospective students, building meaningful relationships with aspiring scientists from diverse backgrounds
- Visiting local schools and youth clubs to deliver talks about our work and career paths.
- Co-ordinating the IoPPN Youth Awards, a faculty-wide outreach programme for London-based teenagers
(4) Team activities
As a team, we were awarded funding from the Undergraduate Research Fellowship Scheme (KURF) in 2022 and jointly supervised Mohini Karhadkar on her project ‘Examining disparities between rates of clinical diagnoses of binge-type eating disorders in white and minoritised ethnic participants’. You can read more about the project here. Mohini was selected to present her project at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research (2023). As of June 2023, we have received further funding for another project titled ‘Exploring anti-racist terminology and research practices for mental health researchers’.
Current group members
(last updated June 2023)
- Yasmin Ahmadzadeh (Co-chair of working group)
- Joanna Bright
- Shannon Bristow
- Bridget Bryan
- Sylvane Desrivieres
- Helena Davies (Co-chair of working group)
- Gursharan Kalsi
- Celestine Lockhart
- Filip Kaleta
- Thomas McGregor
- Elisavet Palaiologou
- Timothy Powell
- Chloe Wong
- Gerome Breen
Past members
- Victoria Milner
- Jessica Mundy
- Zeynep Nas
- Abigail Ter Kuile
- Rebecca Adams