Our Work
Together, we have started to prepare possible interventions to improve our institution, representation, education and thought leadership. Below is the list of initial actions announced by Dean Ilian Mihov on 16 July 2020.These action steps will take effect immediately or will be implemented in the coming academic year.
Institution
- We have appointed an Executive Director of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) who will be responsible for setting up, heading and managing the first office of DEI at INSEAD. Serving as a member of the Dean’s Office, the Executive Director will be responsible for developing a DEI strategic roadmap, and collaborating across departments and stakeholder groups. As such, she will drive efforts related to DEI awareness, action and support for the community.
- We are aligning with leading schools and providing diversity, equity and inclusion training to staff, managers and faculty.
- We are working in collaboration with our faculty and Centres and Initiatives to reflect inclusive principles in our academic life, as well as in our marketing and communication.
- We have launched the INSEAD Africa Initiative to develop partnerships with African universities and organisations and work closely with our alumni in Africa to increase the diversity of our student applications and offer executive programmes. We have appointed an Executive Director and also a Fellow of the Africa Initiative
Representation and Inclusion
- Students. We have doubled our scholarship budget for students from under-represented backgrounds, including from Africa.
- Staff. We will develop a plan to align with best practices to increase the diversity of our staff in accordance with legal requirements of countries where our campuses are located.
- Faculty. We continue to increase efforts to recruit a dynamic and diverse faculty. This includes focusing on our faculty pipeline.
Education
- We have launched a fund dedicated to developing cases that portray minority protagonists, have broad national diversity and address discrimination and injustice.
- We are incorporating material and conversations on systemic racism and equity, diversity and inclusion in our curricula, from launch week of our programmes to specialised electives. We launched a new elective on diversity, equity and inclusion in 2021.
- We have conducted a series of research-based webinars to increase the lifelong learning of all members of our community on equity, diversity and inclusion.
Thought Leadership
- We have allocated €50,000 seed funding from our Research and Development Committee to projects on diversity, equity and inclusion with the view to increase this earmarked envelope every year.
- We have created an INSEAD Knowledge page on diversity, equity and inclusion to display and discuss all of INSEAD's research on the topic.
- We will lead the conversation by holding a regular academic conference on diversity, equity and inclusion. The 2020-21 academic year had two: (i) the “Women at Work” conference looking inter alia at gender intersections with race in March 2021 and (ii) the inaugural "Business in Africa" conference in partnership with Brookings.
