Developing the evidence-base to inform policy on inclusive research design

Considering diversity when designing and conducting research is fundamental to the responsible conduct of research and ensures that outputs from scientific research are reproducible, minimize bias and enable everyone within society the opportunity to benefit. Therefore, health and biomedical research should include consideration of diversity and inclusion in the way studies are designed and conducted. An evaluation of health researchers' approaches to diversity was undertaken to generate evidence to inform research policy development by the UK Medical Research Council (MRC). Seven hundred and seventy-two researchers responded to an anonymized public survey about diversity and inclusion in research design and 590 applications for research funding were evaluated. Fifty per cent of survey respondents undertaking human participant research reported taking diversity, usually age and sex, into account. Although 43% of animal researchers reported using females and males, only 28% of grant applications demonstrated this. Our findings demonstrate that many researchers do not routinely consider diversity when designing research. Furthermore, we identified a gap between what animal researchers reported doing and what was evident in funding applications. Informed by this analysis, MRC implemented a new policy requiring researchers to demonstrate how they embed diversity and inclusion in research design. This survey provides a benchmark for evaluating policy impact.