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Welcome to the in-house professionals’ version of the IP Inclusive Senior Leaders’ Pledge! Created by IP Inclusive and the IP Federation together, this pledge is designed to allow leaders in corporate IP departments to make a visible commitment to promoting diversity and inclusion (D&I) in their teams. The underlying intention is to ensure that D&I issues are championed at the highest level and not relegated to the status of a box-ticking exercise.

How it works

The Leaders’ Pledge consists of eight high-level commitments, shown below. Alongside each of these, a signatory commits to one or more practical steps they will take to fulfil their pledge. These steps can be tailored to suit the size, structure and resources of the individual business and how far it is already along its D&I journey. Every department will be different, and we recognise that the steps you’re able to take will depend on the nature and size of your company and its wider D&I policies. What matters most is that they are publicised, both internally and externally, to demonstrate that D&I will not be a box-ticking exercise, will not be consigned to silos within the organisation, but will be championed at the highest levels.

Unlike the main IP Inclusive EDI Charter – which the Leaders’ Pledge supplements – this is a commitment entered into by individuals not organisations.

 

IP Inclusive Senior Leaders’ Pledge for in-house professionals

 

 

I commit to:

 

Providing visible and proactive leadership to improve diversity and inclusion (D&I)

Taking D&I seriously at the highest level

Embedding and valuing D&I throughout our culture

Building trust and safe spaces throughout the organisation and/or my department working within my organisation’s D&I infrastructure

Educating myself and my colleagues about D&I issues

Sharing my privileges

Insisting on fairness

Working closely with relevant senior colleagues to achieve this

How to sign up

We’d be delighted to welcome you on board as a signatory!

Here’s what to do:

  1. Firstly, take a look at the pledge document, which you can download here. There are eight high-level commitments as detailed above that everyone signs up to. Make sure you’re comfortable doing that.
  2. You then tailor the pledge for your personal circumstances by selecting, for each of the eight, one or two practical steps you’ll take to demonstrate your commitment. We’ve provided some ideas but really, this part is up to you. Every department will be different, and we recognise that the steps you’re able to take will depend on the nature and size of your company and its wider D&I policies. Do feel free to create your own steps instead of or in addition to those we’ve suggested.
  3. Having created your personal pledge, you then publish it. This part is important. Publicise it wherever you feasibly can: in internal documents and/or (where appropriate in view of the corporate strategy and policy) external work-related comms. You could, for example, post about it on LinkedIn.
  4. Let us know at IP Inclusive: send your name, company and job title, along with a link to your published pledge, to [email protected]. We’ll add those to our ongoing list of pledge signatories.
  5. Also please let us know if you would like to be added to our mailing list of pledge signatories. That will allow us to contact you about updates to the pledge, resources for signatories and relevant events and discussion forums. We will only use this list to tell you about things that relate specifically to the Senior Leaders’ Pledge – but you don’t have to join it if you’d prefer not to.

For ease of reference, you can download the sign-up notes here.

Follow-up

We’re relying on you and your team members to ensure you deliver on your Senior Leaders’ Pledge commitments! We recommend you review them once a year to check how you’re doing, and update your pledge if appropriate.

Do please make use of the IP Inclusive events and resources to help you champion diversity and inclusion in your team.

More information

Our Senior Leaders’ Pledge webpage  provides more information about the pledge, and the background to the initial version we created for private practice IP professionals. It also links to a list of the leaders who have signed up so far; if you click on their names you can see examples of how different people have interpreted the eight commitments.