Royal Academy of Engineering/Science Council Progression Framework

During spring 2025, BINDT staff and Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Group members, led by Chair Amy Schofield, held a series of meetings to put together a response to the Royal Academy of Engineering/Science Council Progression Framework benchmarking exercise. Some very useful discussions took place and those taking part found it a revealing and interesting process.

The Framework is a self-assessment tool for Professional Engineering Institutes (PEIs), which we can use to assess and monitor our progress in equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI), compare against benchmarks and guide our future actions. The information that we provide is not publicly shared, but it is used by the Framework team to produce an overall picture of the engineering and science professions. We also receive our own results back in the form of a report.

Our Framework report has just been received and the overall sector analysis reports for Engineering Council and Science Council registered bodies will be published later this year. This year, 44 organisations participated, which shows a very good level of engagement with the Framework and reflects the approach taken to share experience and create a community of practice for EDI across the sector.

The Progression Framework covers EDI progress in areas such as ‘Governance and Leadership’, ‘Outreach and Engagement’ and ‘Membership’. We assessed ourselves on a Level 0-4 scale, with Level 0 meaning activities have not yet started, Level 2 indicating that actions are being launched, Level 3 showing progression and Level 4 giving evidence of culture transformation.

Our results from the benchmarking show us to be in a solid position with Level 3 (Progressing) in many areas of activity. The overview shows that this is typical of the PEIs who responded. It is not only good to see our own position, but great to see similar progress across the engineering community.

Some notable progress points: we are expecting that our recently expanded efforts in ‘Outreach and Engagement’ (something we were “most proud of” in our submission) will help with generating a more inclusive BINDT membership across our part of the engineering community, as well as bringing new people into non-destructive testing/condition monitoring/structural health monitoring technologies. In the area of ‘Awards’, the work we have carried out on new awards criteria has put us ahead on benchmarking compared to other PEIs, but we need more awareness of the changes to make a clear difference. Our ‘Communications’ continue to showcase diversity and encourage participation from younger and early career groups especially.

A recurring theme is the need to properly collect data on our members and participants; we regarded this as our main challenge. This is a difficult topic and one where most PEIs are behind compared to their progress in other areas. We also felt that we were at an early stage in turning our attention to diversity and inclusion in ‘Education and Training’. In fact, some new ideas under consideration include a mentorship scheme, which as the report notes can be particularly beneficial for women and under-represented groups to develop their careers.

As mentioned at the start, members and staff participating in the self-assessment process found a great deal to think about regarding BINDT’s future actions on diversity and inclusion. I am proud of our Institute’s commitment to improvement and I look forward to further progress: developing our skills and capabilities for culture transformation at Level 4. We are using this opportunity to update our plans on EDI – watch this space!

If you have any thoughts or ideas, or are interested in joining the D&I Advisory Group, please get in touch: diversity@bindt.org