Sharing our privileges: high-level outreach & access commitments

From our inaugural meeting of the senior leaders’ diversity think tank in 2020, we identified objectives for improving diversity and inclusion both within our own organisations and throughout the UK’s IP professions. Two of these were to:

• Raise awareness of the patent and trade mark professions among a wider range of potential recruits, in particular those in currently under-represented groups
• Widen access to the two professions through our recruitment processes and more creative onboarding and support schemes

In the Senior Leaders’ Pledge that we subsequently established – and which many of us have signed – we also included a commitment to “share our privileges”.

Building on our earlier commitments, we have identified specific practical measures for achieving these objectives. Each of us now pledges:

1. To implement two or more of the measures identified below in our organisations
2. In doing so:
   • To target specifically people who would not otherwise have had the opportunity to engage with the IP professions
   • To embrace a range of roles, both fee-earning and non-fee-earning
3. Where appropriate, to work alongside IP Inclusive’s Careers in Ideas outreach campaign, which provides a mechanism for amplifying the efforts of our individual organisations to widen access to IP sector careers

We will aim to reach a broader range of recruits through, for example, relevant charities and community interest groups; the Careers in Ideas Mentoring Hub; and other “new” school, college and university contacts.

Specific practical measures

External engagement

• Provide one or more work experience or internship opportunities a year
• Provide one or more open days/taster days a year, at least partly virtual, with appropriate follow-up
• Provide one or more school or university careers talks a year
• Collaborate with other think tank members on a joint IP “summer school” or similar scheme
  • (This could take the form of a single centralised scheme or alternatively of coordinated activities in several separate organisations)
• Lobby for the inclusion of IP modules in relevant university courses, eg through relevant accreditation bodies

Collaboration with Careers in Ideas (C in I)

• Provide one or more mentors for the CinI Mentoring Hub
• Make use of the generic CinI resources in our outreach work, and provide feedback and suggestions to the CinI team so that everyone in the IP professions can benefit
• Help fund the CinI Mentoring Hub for another 6 months after its pilot from November 2021 to May 2022

Recruitment and access

• Set targets for recruitment of people from certain under-represented groups, and monitor our progress towards those targets
• Require external recruitment consultants to field more candidates from under-represented groups
• Implement some form of “contextual recruitment” system
• With HR colleagues, commit to implementing best practices in recruitment and staff development processes
• Share relevant resources with others in the sector

Internal support measures

• Involve all staff in outreach work, not just fee earners
• Provide staff with time off to do outreach work
• Take outreach work into account in staff appraisals

Page published on 18th February 2022
Page last modified on 18th February 2022