Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis

The Research Network on Promoting Equality and Diversity Through Economic Crisis ('PEDEC') draws on core philosophical and methodological traditions from geography, law, business and management, history and politics to advance understanding of: (i) the equality and diversity effects of the downturn across places, sectors, and social groups; and (ii) the possibilities for resisting negative outcomes and effecting positive change.

PEDEC is concerned to promote equality based both on the recognition of difference and the redistribution of resources (Fraser, 1997). The fundamental inseparability of social class from other dimensions of social identity (gender, race/ethnicity, disability, age, sexual orientation and religion) also critically inform the approach taken. Collaborators will pool their inter-disciplinary expertise to debate urgent issues around: competing organizational responses to economic crisis; the uneven social and spatial distribution of redundancy; the effect and utility in this climate of legal interventions including as envisaged by the 2009 Equality Bill; a potential backlash against equality and diversity as 'too costly in recession'; and the media representation of these issues.

The creation of the network responds to the new questions that have been raised by the economic crisis and that require investigation across disciplinary and spatial boundaries. It brings together scholars, practitioners and activists from the UK and elsewhere to explore the implications of the economic downturn, and coming cuts in public spending, for maintaining and progressing equality and diversity standards and for including marginalized groups in economic recovery.

Who will benefit from the network?
The network will bring together scholars, practitioners and activists from the UK, Europe and the US to explore the implications of the economic downturn, and coming cuts in public spending, for maintaining and progressing equality and diversity standards and for including marginalized groups in economic recovery. In addition to the range of non-academic organizations from which workshop speakers will be drawn (including The Guardian; Young Foundation; Court of Appeal; Centre for Migration, Policy and Society; London Citizens; TUC, and Unison) PEDEC has identified a wider group of potential end-users and stakeholders which will also benefit from its proposed research activities. In addition to UK employers, these include: UK national government (Government Equalities Office (EOA); BIS; DCLG; Home Office; MOJ); regional policy agencies (Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA); Equality NorthEast); public sector agencies (Equality and Human Rights Commission); professional / practitioner groups (CIPD; other); civil society stakeholders (Opportunity Now; Amicus-Unite; Equality and Diversity Forum); and charities / not-for-profit organizations (Working Families; Portia-Equalitec; The Work Foundation). End-users can also be identified elsewhere in Europe (e.g. European Commission's EQUAL Initiative) and the US (e.g. US Dept of Labor Women's Bureau; Congress for Racial Equality).

How will these groups benefit?
PEDEC will provide a forum for policy makers, third sector stakeholders, employers and charities to access up-to-date thinking on equality and diversity, which is essential if they are to make informed choices. PEDEC's contribution will be very timely given the challenges the recession poses to earlier equality and diversity research conducted in a period of economic stability and growth. PEDEC aims to provide stakeholders with new, inter-disciplinary research understandings updated to the (post)recession context, to better inform the formulation of new policies and strategies for tackling exclusion. Crucially, participants will be asked to pool their intellectual expertise across entrenched disciplinary, organizational and spatial boundaries to debate urgent issues around: competing organizational responses to economic crisis; the uneven social and spatial distribution of redundancy; the effect and utility in this climate of legal interventions including as envisaged by the Equality Bill; a potential backlash against equality and diversity as 'too costly in recession'; and the media representation of these issues. The knowledge dissemination benefits of the proposed research network must also be understood in relation to the increasingly long lead times, expensive subscription rates, and narrowly-defined audiences of many academic journals publishing research in this area.

What will be done to ensure these benefits?
PEDEC is founded on the recognition that scholars need to work closely with wider stakeholders to identify the most urgent equality and diversity research priorities in recession. Practitioners will, therefore, be embedded in the PEDEC network from outset, building on existing links between the PEDEC organizers and organizations beyond academia. Financial assistance will be provided to members of third sector organizations with limited budgets who otherwise would not be able to attend these seminars. Papers presented at each of the four workshops will be distributed through the network website, as full documents and as shorter, media-friendly summaries aimed at a wider audience. An email list of key stakeholder contacts in end-user organisations will also be compiled to disseminate regular briefings, announcements and calls for participation. The inclusion of representatives from the media as seminar speakers and participants will further ensure the wide