Eyres Inclusion Consulting builds inclusive cultures that deliver results. We work with clients to embed inclusive practices, making inclusion relevant for every individual to drive performance, engagement and lasting success.
New for May: Packages including Responsible Research and Innovation.
Inclusive organisations are more effective, innovative and productive1, demonstrating improvements across staff engagement, decision-making and outcomes including staff retention, satisfaction and recruitment. They provide better value for their clients, funders, members or students.
“The environment you have created…has not only enhanced our productivity but also made our workplace a more enjoyable and inspiring place to be” Further testimonials.
Our unique combination of senior leadership experience in education and research, coupled with sector insights across industry, professional bodies, learned societies, public sector and universities, enables us to understand your organisational culture and make actionable recommendations to progress your equity, inclusions and diversity goals.
“Stewart provides an external perspective that surfaces existing strengths and identifies areas for progress. He quickly formed a clear understanding of the devolved, locally autonomous nature of departments at the university.” Further testimonials.
Our approach ensures that inclusion is relevant for every individual and every experience, please get in touch.
Sector Specialisms
- Universities and Research Institutes: Inclusion is core to the mission of universities, for both education and research. Factors such as student wellbeing, the Research Excellence Framework, funder expectations, and course accreditation requirements make inclusion essential in connecting with increasingly diverse student communities, winning research funding, delivering impact or supporting students and staff throughout their careers.
- Public Sector: Developing an inclusive culture ensures compliance with the public sector equality duty, supporting people-centred service design, ultimately delivering efficiency by reducing the need for individual adjustments. See our blog post for more on the benefits of inclusion for public bodies.
- Business and Industry: harnessing the diversity of your organisation delivers improved customer connection and satisfaction, with better understanding of needs and alignment of your product offer. Embedding EDI is also helps demonstrate Social Value, strengthening bids for public sector contracts.
Why is inclusion essential?
“Diversity is a fact. Inclusion is an act.” This quote from Celeste Warren, VP Global Diversity & Inclusion at Merck, encapsulates why we believe inclusion is a core activity of every sustainable, successful organisation. Even in the face of the most severe exclusion, diversity persists in any body of people. By harnessing and enhancing that inherent diversity, organisations become better places for more people, for all. A ramp benefits any use case prevented by stairs. Removing barriers to sharing mental health difficulties is safer for everyone. Such explicit acts of inclusion lead to greater belonging and healthier organisations. An inclusive culture benefits every individual, be they in the existing dominant group or holding multiply-marginalised identities.
“Stewart’s unique experience combining both academia and engineering industries was invaluable” Further testimonials.
Services
We provide inclusion-first insights, guidance, coaching and development. Each element can be delivered independently or brought together to drive strategic culture change at the organisational level. We also design bespoke packages in partnership with clients to meet specific needs.
| Culture development for teams | Mentoring & coaching for leaders |
| Bids for projects and funding | Experience mapping |
| Audits, Reviews & Action Plans | Policy, process & regulations |
Developing Inclusive Leaders
Inclusive leadership is critical for organisational success, and inclusion a core leadership competency. We provide coaching or mentoring to support leaders to develop the skills and attitudes required. Every client benefits from a tailored experience, aligning with individual context and aspirations, from newly promoted managers through to experienced leaders who wish to further develop their skills.
Creating inclusive team cultures
Our Inclusive Cultures Programme establishes shared knowledge, expectations, language and understanding, giving a firm foundation for the development of an inclusive team culture. Tailored to suit your industry, discipline and team size and with the option to include specialist elements to support new recruits, develop confidence or address particular challenges, the programme will equip your team with the tools to create an inclusive working environment and be more effective in their roles.
Experience Mapping
You may have the policy and process in place, but does it work in practice? We map the individual experience to understand what is happening . Through a mix of individual interviews, surveys, focus groups and immersion within your organisation, we can identify the reality and any mismatches from organisational values, intent and mission. From this we provide clear action plans to drive impactful improvements.
Audits and action planning
We undertake audits and reviews providing actionable insights to improve inclusion and meet regulatory requirements. This can include organisational process and policy, pre-submission review of course accreditation, or tender and funding bids. Support given can include devising action plans that deliver the right outcomes. Working in partnership, we can also support work at the strategic level to embed EDI by design.
Policy and process improvement
We don’t simply map experiences or review policies, we improve policies, processes or regulation as well. This includes simplifying language, addressing unintended consequences and embedding inclusion by design. We have worked from concerns already identified by clients, as well as our own audit and mapping exercises.
Embedding inclusion in bidding
Funder expectations increasingly emphasise inclusion-related factors within research funding and commercial tender requirements. This could be within social value, sector programmes such as Fairness, Inclusion and Respect, or alignment of UK Research & Innovation expectations with the UK’s R&D people strategy. We provide the expertise to support these aspects of bidding and embed inclusion in funded projects. Our experience across multiple sectors and disciplines enables provision of objective review of your planned activity, shaping improved action plans that deliver impact and evidence and meet funder requirements, or improve practice to meet other sector requirements such as the Research Excellence Framework or Social Value.
We are also keen to partner with clients on a speculative basis in bidding for funds or contracts. We provide specialist knowledge, skills and capabilities to ensure inclusion requirements are fully met.
Bespoke consultancy and projects
We can work with you to design tailored impactful inclusion projects, for example across work cultures, research, student wellbeing and success. We work with a range of partners on areas including research culture science communication and public engagement, marketing, impact, outreach, employability, course design and student experience.
Get in touch to explore the possibilities.
Collaborative consultancy
Eyres Inclusion Consulting was founded by Dr Stewart Eyres. As Principal Consultant, Stewart works with clients to develop inclusive cultures and embed inclusion as standard practice.
Stewart is an experienced leader and researcher with extensive higher education knowledge and understanding of the public sector, industry and the educational ecosystem. He has informed EDI Strategy for organisations including the Institution of Fire Engineers, supported the creation of an EDI Employability Toolkit as part of the Royal Academy of Engineering Diversity Impact Programme and worked with businesses such as Taylor Woodrow to map the staff experience across a complex and diverse organisation.
His work within higher education is varied and impactful, covering interim leadership, EDI project development and the delivery of coaching at universities including Wrexham, Bath, Portsmouth, Birmingham City and Cambridge. It also bridges industry and academia, for example exploring Responsible Research and Innovation through an EDI Lens with the Lincam project at Ceres Agritech (a joint collaboration of four universities and Cambridge Enterprise).
More about Eyres Inclusion Consulting.
Footnotes
Eyres Inclusion Consulting 