This post has forwarded from the Higher Education Race Action Group (HERAG). The issue of funding on Black issues being exclusively awarded to White researchers keeps recurring, and has also happened in Geography. It has been discussed at RACE meetings multiple times. This open letter is a helpful step towards holding research councils to account.

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From Addy Adelaine (ladders4action):

Yesterday, myself and 9 other Black women involved in research wrote an open letter to the UK’s largest funding organisation
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-views-of-the-uk-2020-8-knowledge-is-power-an-open-letter-to-ukri/

We felt motivated to write after we learnt that from a £4.3 Million fund to research COVID & BAME communities, £0 went to Black academic leads, no equality data was captured and one person on the assessment panel is connected to 3 of the 6 successful grants.

Here is a short explainer video I created
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_KXByoUcfw

The Huffington post wrote an article about this yesterday
https://bit.ly/323qkzp

You can also see my tweets
https://twitter.com/AddyAdelaine/status/1293886776235433984?s=20
Twitter Handle: @AddyAdelaine

Research affects policy and policy directly affects our lives. Whether it is UKRI, SAGE committees, A’level algorithms or government inquiries we must start asking some tough questions about who is holding power.

Please read our open letter and sign to support us
https://knowledgeispower.live/add-your-name/

We are also holding an online discussion on 10th Sept
https://knowledgeispower.live/events/

Please sign to support our open letter and support inclusive, accountable and equitable research

Thank you
Dr. Addy Adelaine