There is a growing body of scientific literature that suggests women are actively and passively discriminated against in academia, and that the problem is particularly persistent across Engineering and Sciences. For example, in 2012, a study was published where applications that had been randomly assigned a male or female name, were rated for a Physics Laboratory Manager position. Recruitment panels rated the male applicant as significantly more competent and hireable than the (identical) female applicant. They also offered a higher starting salary and more career mentoring to the male. The experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) academics in Science and Engineering are considerably less well-studied than those of women. This may be as result of the extremely low numbers of LGBT staff that are out at work in Science and Engineering Faculties (as compared to the Arts and Humanities). One published study interviewed LGB Engineering students and found that engineering departments were viewed as hostile by the majority of LGB-identifying students and that most navigated this heteronormative engineering climate by 'passing' as heterosexual. The low numbers of openly LGBT staff would suggest that this is a common experience. The STEM Equals project aims to develop initiatives that will improve equality and diversity for female and LGBT staff across the Science and Engineering Faculty at the University of Strathclyde. We will then expand our initiatives to encompass other Faculties, reach out to collaborative research partners in industry and share best practice with other Universities throughout the UK.We will build on existing initiatives, supporting women within the Faculty of Engineering, to develop a comprehensive programme of gender- and LGBT-related equality and diversity activities. We aim to: encompass a broader equality and diversity agenda; fully include the Faculty of Science; develop a joint equality learning experience with key industry-university research partners; undertake research to understand specific challenges and develop new initiatives; reach out to other local Universities and strategic industry partners to share best practice.

It is vital for the UK's economy and position as a global leader of scientific discovery that talented researchers are recruited and retained within our research communities. Despite legal frameworks and initiatives by universities and other employers, disabled researchers, and those with chronic health problems, are leaving scientific careers before entering permanent academic positions. Barriers to disability inclusive careers include, for example: - the built environment, - inaccessible laboratories and lectures halls, - social barriers including shared office spaces or networking and - managerial, (e.g. limited understanding of disability organisational policies and frameworks). It is vital that these barriers are overcome in order to ensure scientific careers are open to all talented scientists. For this reason, this research focuses on early career entry to scientific careers, specifically postdoctoral researchers. The aim of this project is to improve the recruitment, retention & progression of postdoctoral disabled scientists through the co-design of a suite of web based tools and gaming technologies (Disability Inclusive Science Careers - DISC). Disability Inclusive Science Careers (DISC) is a suite of web based and immersive virtual reality gaming tools designed to support industry employers, universities, research funders, trade unions and other key stakeholders to create disability inclusive scientific careers. The project is led by a team of researchers and career development specialists in two universities, disability advocacy organisations and a global engineering company. Disabled researchers, managers, employers and other key stakeholders will co-design DISC alongside academics with expertise in diversity and organisational change. The programme of work consists of five work packages: Work Package 1: will map existing policies and best practice in universities and employers and interviewing key stakeholders to co-design a web-based tool and the immersive virtual reality games. Work Package 2: will develop, implement and refine, the web based tool developed using interviews with disabled academics and key stakeholders, and refined based on feedback with end-users. DISC will include animations and videos of first person narratives of science careers and disability. Online training will expose participants to disability legislation, accessibility policies and practices, best practice from organisations, reasonable adjustments guidance and self-care support for disabled researchers. Work Package 3: partners with a software development company to develop immersive virtual reality games for line managers and research leaders to immerse participants in the lived experiences of disabled researchers. Work package 3 will also develop and deliver train-the-trainer sessions with managers and research leaders on disability inclusion. This training can then be rolled out into participants' organisations. Work Package 4: will co-design, deliver and implement training for disabled PhD students and postdoctoral researchers on their on their rights and responsibilities and how to ask for reasonable adjustments. Work Package 5: embeds DISC into the organisational practices and policies in participating organisations, and disseminated to all universities in Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom, via a disability inclusion summer school in 2020. To assess the efficacy of DISC participants will complete awareness questionnaires before and after work packages 3, 4 and 5 and will be followed up over a 3 year period following the end of the funding.

Female academics, particularly in STEM subjects, score consistently lower than male academics in metrics measuring international [1] and industrial collaborations [2]. These two related assessment criteria are key at all stages in academic careers and particularly important at senior levels to secure the highest value research grants and promotions. While several barriers have been identified to academic career advancement for women and have led to strategic interventions at national and institutional levels, there remains a lack of data and action specifically targeting networking and collaboration - the focus of this VisNET programme. Our vision is 1) To identify key barriers to international collaboration for female engineering academics 2) To design and demonstrate interventions and new best practices in networking and collaborations to define a new and more effective normal. The emergence and rapid development of technologies that support geographically remote working relationships presents a timely opportunity. Effective use of such tools could help to correct the disadvantages experienced by women in international collaboration. We propose an intervention to determine and remodel the implicit 'rules' of networking and collaboration. This pilot project is aimed at a cohort of female post-doctoral researchers (PDRAs). Transition from post-doc to academic is a key attrition point for women in engineering. Success is reliant on demonstrating the means to develop academic independence. Possession of a strong network can be crucial. At the same time this group has relative freedom to trial new approaches of working and represents a critical mass to demonstrate and embed novel methods, including a route to involve more established academics. Thus, the interdisciplinary academic and industrial consortium we have brought together will lead the way in developing, integrating and advocating a new approach where networking and collaboration is conducted predominantly in situ (i.e. from home institutions). We believe that at this critical postdoctoral stage implementation of strategic networking and collaboration can be career defining, providing crucial routes to build confidence, establish future academic independence and funding success. Furthermore, it has the potential to mitigate the impact of future career breaks and parenthood. By demonstrating that networks can be built without frequent travel, it will also address the perception that an academic career is incompatible with work-life balance or family responsibilities, factors identified by junior researchers when consulted about their choice to leave academia [3]. While we see here an opportunity to have a rapid tangible impact on the academic career of a finite group of women, VisNET will also act as an effective route to embed our approaches into the working practices of our universities. Effective in situ networking has the potential to directly tackle negative perceptions of work-life balance in academia, contribute to the promotion of flexible working patterns and advance inclusivity for other minority academic communities such as academics with disabilities or remotely located. The coordinated outcome of this programme fits directly into EPSRC's and our Universities' strategic plans to build leadership, accelerate impact and balance capabilities ensuring the continued progression of UK emerging research leaders by enhancing their experiences and embedding career robustness. [1] Larivière et al., "Bibliometrics: Global gender disparities in science," Nat. News, vol. 504, no. 7479, p. 211, 2013 [2] Tartari & A. Salter, "The engagement gap: Exploring gender differences in University - Industry collaboration activities," Res. Policy, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 1176-1191, 2015 [3] Shaw & Stanton, "Leaks in the pipeline: separating demographic inertia from ongoing gender differences in academia," Proc. R. Soc. B Biol. Sci., vol. 279, no. 1743, p. 3736, 2012

Digital twins are a fusion of digital technologies considered by many leading advocates to be revolutionary in nature. Digital twins offer exciting new possibilities across a wide range of sectors from health, environment, transport, manufacturing, defence, and infrastructure. By connecting the virtual and physical worlds (e.g. cyber-physcial), digital twins are able to better support decisions, extend operational lives, and introduce multiple other efficiencies and benefits. As a result, digital twins have been identified by government, professional bodies and industry, as a key technology to help address many of the societal challenges we face. To date, digital twin (DT) innovation has been strongly driven by industry practitioners and commercial innovators. As would be expected with any early-adoption approach, projects have been bespoke & often isolated, and so there is a need for research to increase access, lower entry costs and develop interconnectivity. Furthermore, there are several major gaps in underpinning academic research relating to DT. The academic push has been significantly lagging behind the industry pull. As a result, there is an urgent need for a network that will fill gaps in the underpinning research for topics such as; uncertainty, interoperability, scaling, governance & societal effects. In terms of existing networking activities, there are several industry-led user groups and domain-specific consortia. However, there has never been a dedicated academic-led DT network that brings together academic research teams across the entire remit of UKRI with user-led groups. DTNet+ will address this gap with a consortium which has both sufficient breadth and depth to deliver transformative change.