Our Environmental, Social and Governance commitments
Our mission to reduce death and disability from cardiovascular disease and diabetes and to drive better health for all is ingrained in our organisation. We know that we can broaden our impact by harnessing our commitment to excellence to extend across all aspects of our work, including equity and diversity.
Our organisation’s philosophy is underscored by a firm commitment to equity and diversity. These core values underpin our work with the high-risk communities in which we operate and aim to drive change. These values both drive and inspire our work.
Key initiatives that we are working on relating to Environmental, Social, and Governance include:
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We have formalised our approach to ensuring the voice of lived experience is considered in our research by appointing a Community Engagement Coordinator and developing evidence-based policies, procedures and communication processes to support our community engagement program. Our community engagement group has been actively engaged in helping to shape research projects, including those with experience around heart failure complications and atrial fibrillation.
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Equity is at the heart of many of our studies. For example, we know that Aboriginal people and the elderly experience a disproportionate burden of heart conditions like heart valve disease and heart failure. That’s why we are leading a world-first trial in remote communities using AI-guided technology to perform an ultrasound of the heart for early detection of these conditions. An example of our global work is a five-year structured health interventions trial in tribal communities in Northeast India that we are leading to reduce cardiometabolic risk in adolescents and young adults.
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We recognise that scientific laboratories are resource-intensive spaces. That’s why our Diabetes and Vascular Medicine lab led by Professor Alicia Jenkins is trialling a global certification program called ‘My Green Lab’ to understand the scope of certification requirements, the cost implications and if and how this program might be rolled out to other laboratories.
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The Institute’s ‘Innovate’ Reconciliation Action Plan was endorsed in July 2022. This is helping us to sustainably and strategically take meaningful action to advance reconciliation. As part of this work, we are developing a First Scientists program for Indigenous high school students to provide them with a taste of what a science career might look like.
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We know there is strong awareness and support for gender equity and diversity amongst our staff. Questions around our commitment and support relating to gender equity and diversity consistently scores favourably (85% and above) in our past two employee engagement surveys in 2020 and 2022.
We’re also very proud of our female Alice Baker and Eleanor Shaw Gender Equity Fellowships supported by our long-time supporters, the Baker Foundation. Since 2020, we have awarded three five-year senior female fellowships.
