COS 256-1 - From Survey to Impact: Using Community Based Participatory Research to prioritize and center the needs of historically marginalized scientists

Background/Question/Methods

Climate change will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as poor and marginalized populations, both in developing and developed countries. Yet, environmental and climate science in the United States and in Europe fail to reflect diversity across race, income, and ability. Finding climate solutions will require engaging diverse groups at all levels, including in research and academic spaces. Thus, it is important to understand the level of diversity within current academic climate spaces, the comfort of different people in these spaces, and ways to build more equitable and inclusive spaces.

We present a Community Based Participatory Research method for helping to prioritize needs of people from historically marginalized backgrounds (historically marginalized people - HMP) in the development of DEIJ (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice) programming. We conducted this project in the Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center (NE CASC) community. We used a combination of workshops, surveys, and discussions to identify and prioritize DEIJ actions for the group. Our survey assessed current diversity at NE CASC, highlighted community member perspectives, considered pandemic working experiences, assessed current DEIJ involvement, and identified action priorities. This case study likely reflects the experiences of HMPs in other research institutions and academic departments.

Results/Conclusions

We surveyed 42 NE CASC members, including students, research and administrative staff, and faculty. 30% of respondents identified as HMP. HMP reported significantly different experiences overall. For example, HMP were less likely to report feeling comfortable in their work environments. The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the experiences of HMP differently, with HMP more likely to have considered leaving academia and reporting more anxiety about returning to in person work due to their identity. Open answer questions revealed that HMP were skeptical about the commitment of institutions to deeply understand systemic racism in science, questioned whether institutions are committed to long-term, meaningful action, and worried that institutions would focus on increasing diversity without considering equity. HMP also expressed concern about the ability of institutions to engage in productive DEIJ work without relying on the unpaid labor of HMP researchers and graduate students.

Our study shows a clear difference in the experiences of HMP researchers relative to non-HMP researchers. Since the majority of respondents to these types of climate surveys are not marginalized, aggregated responses from surveys and forums are likely to fail to recognize and center marginalized voices, thereby missing critical areas for improvement. Our methods are freely available for replication elsewhere.