IP Inclusive’s Mission is to promote and improve equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) throughout the UK’s IP professions. You can help support that goal by publicly committing to do your bit, by stepping up and proclaiming that you are going to be part of the solution. So, if you haven’t signed our Charter yet, do it now.
And once you’ve signed it, turn your commitment into action with the help of our Steps to Inclusion D&I review.
There’s strength in numbers, especially when you’re a minority or facing systematic disadvantage. That’s why our communities are so important: they are groups of individuals providing a safe space to support each other, to share best practice and experiences, to network or simply to enjoy each other’s company. There are currently six communities supporting diverse groups in the IP sector:
But even if you don’t belong to one of these so-called “minority” groups, you’re still welcome to join any of our communities as an ally.
Sign up on the ‘Stay in touch’ panel near the bottom of the page to make sure you hear about upcoming news and events.
IP Inclusive is run entirely by volunteers and so the more volunteers we have, the more we can do. (We may come back to this – keep reading.) So, if you’d like a community to do more or to do something different, don’t wait – make it happen. Get in touch with the IP Inclusive team or through the contact links on the communities’ individual pages.
And if you don’t feel the current communities cater for you, get in touch about starting your own; we’ll do what we can to support you.
At the risk of repetition, IP Inclusive is run by volunteers – people like you who care about equality, diversity and inclusion and want to make a difference. To get involved in organising our activities, preparing resources for others to share, or just helping with our social media and other communications, drop us a line or come and say hi at any of our events or meetings. There’s a directory here of the key IP Inclusive people to look out for.
None of us has all the answers, but collectively we can support each other by sharing expertise and experiences. We’re always on the look-out for articles, news, features and resources that we can host on this website or direct people to elsewhere. To contribute, please send us an email.
Don’t just write for IP Inclusive, write about it. In fact, don’t worry too much about promoting us (although that would be nice); what’s more important is that we all talk more about equality, diversity and inclusion. Write about it for your colleagues, for your clients or in the national media. Post about it on your organisation’s website, on your own personal blog or on LinkedIn.
And of course tweet about IP Inclusive, our work and our mission. Don’t forget to follow @IPInclusive and the individual Twitter accounts of each of our communities.
We’re always keen to hear about venues where we can host events, social functions, meetings and seminars, so if you’d like an opportunity not just to show your support for diversity and inclusion, but also to invite prospective clients, colleagues and collaborators through your door, then do please let us know.
Or if you’ve got an idea for an event you’d like to organise, get in touch for help in promoting it as part of our calendar of IP Inclusive events.
In November 2018, we organised our first IP Inclusive Week. Our second followed in November 2019, and in November 2020 we ran a dedicated Careers in Ideas Week instead, packed full of outreach events and resources.
Many of the events and activities in these campaigns are run not by the IP Inclusive team, but by our Charter signatories and supporters. If you’d like to organise something for the next IP Inclusive Week, do let us know. But of course, supporting the week isn’t just about running your own in-house events: it’s about attending other people’s, inviting others to share yours, raising awareness and spreading the word through your social and professional networks.
Did we mention yet that IP Inclusive is run by volunteers? That doesn’t mean everything is free though. It simply means that every penny we spend goes directly on furthering our mission. We need financial support and are hugely grateful to our generous sponsors, supporters and partners – some of whom give us funding directly and some of whom give us support in kind. You can help, for instance, by volunteering time or administrative support: there are plenty of vital jobs to go round, as we explain in our blog post here.
Our supporters gain as much as we do because the argument for equality, diversity and inclusion is as commercial as it is ethical. If you’d like to share the benefit too, please drop us a line. There’s more information, about both corporate and individual donations, on our fundraising page.
We are constantly adding to our library of resources to help you raise the bar on equality, diversity and inclusion. They range from presentations, webinars and reports to the Careers in Ideas website that we created specially to promote IP-related careers to a more diverse group of school-leavers and graduates.
By using these resources, not only do you enhance your own expertise and good practices, but you encourage others to produce more of them, which helps us keep them comprehensive and up to date. If you’ve got resources of your own to contribute or a link you’d like us to share, just let us know.
Yes, you read that right: you can help IP Inclusive by helping yourself. If you’re running an event or a campaign that’s relevant to our mission, let us know and we’ll help spread the word throughout the IP sector.
You can also use Careers in Ideas to profile your team members and to let school-leavers, graduates and their advisers knows about your organisation, in particular any open days, internships or work experience opportunities you offer.
Probably the most important way you can support IP Inclusive and its objectives is to be the change you want to see. Start by looking at your own practices and asking what you can change to improve your approach. Then look at your immediate colleagues, your whole organisation, the wider IP sector and society all around us. Challenge prejudice wherever you see it and build fairness into the very fabric of our future.