Creating an inclusive and anti-racist academia - Online panel discussion

Women in Cognitive Science - Europe (WiCS-E)

Join our online panel to learn ways you can help create an anti-racist academia

The last decades have seen a range of work promoting anti-racism, and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) more broadly, in academia and society. Nonetheless, systemic inequalities persist and multiple barriers are faced by people of colour, namely in entering, staying, or progressing in academia. There is also a growing recognition that academic work and curricula often remains limited to Western ideas, authors, participants, neglecting much of the rich diversity in human experiences and knowledge systems of other peoples across the world. These two dimensions can reinforce each other, reproducing colonial narratives and practices that marginalise certain people and ideas from knowledge production, resulting in an impoverishing Western understanding of the world, and hindering collective knowledge development. Therefore, we need to continue actively working towards creating an anti-racist academia, one that can be truly open and inclusive of all people and of different ways of understanding and creating knowledge. This event is taking place during the United Kingdom’s Black History Month, celebrated annually in October to make time to honour the voices and contributions of Black individuals and communities, as well as foster conversations that challenge the cultural narratives and practices that have often excluded and marginalised them and their experiences. While recognising that different European countries vary in how they are grappling with their colonial histories and multicultural dialogue, we take this opportunity to bring these conversations to a European context, as these issues are important to people from all backgrounds. Our identities are multifaceted, and different facets can intersect to further marginalise individuals; we thus need to work together to fight against all types of discrimination and marginalisation. Come join us and hear our panellists, who will share their perspectives and examples of actions they have been leading. These will range from initiatives at departmental, institutional, national, or international levels, concerning both the academic working environment and the academic work itself. You will gain a better understanding of the issues, what can be done about it, and be inspired and empowered to take action in your own contexts.

<a href="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/felix-ameka#tab-2" title="https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/staffmembers/felix-ameka#tab-2" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Professor Felix Ameka</a>Emeritus Professor, Ethnolinguistic Vitality and Diversity in the World, Leiden University, Netherlands. Prof Ameka is a socio-cultural-cognitive linguist who conducts interdisciplinary research on the reflexive relations between language, culture and cognition and linguistic worldviews. His interests include language documentation and description, anthropological and contact linguistics, knowledge systems, multilingualism, sociolinguistics of development, digital humanities and language technologies for lesser-resourced languages, and comparative and socio-cultural language studies. A current theme of preoccupation is emancipatory and inclusive linguistics. He has been a Visiting Teaching/Research Fellow in universities in Africa, Australia, Europe, UK, and USA. He has published on the lexicon, grammar, (ethno-)semantics, (ethno-) pragmatics, and language contact of West African languages and on Atlantic Creoles. Recent publications have appeared in Language Documentation &amp; Conservation, a volume on Swearing and Cursing, and a chapter (with Azeb Amha) in Approaches to language and culture (de Gruyter 2022). He is co-Editor (with D. Hill) of Languages, Linguistics and Development Practices (Palgrave 2022) and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of African Languages and Linguistics. He is the President of the World Congress of African Linguistics and Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, Australian Academy of Humanities, and Academia Europaea.

<a href="https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/narender-ramnani" title="https://pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/en/persons/narender-ramnani" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Professor Narender Ramnani</a>Professor of Neuroscience in the Psychology Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, UK. His research programme focuses on frontal lobe and cerebellar mechanisms of learning, higher cognition and motor control in the human brain. After his honours degree in Psychology from Birkbeck College and a Masters degree in Neuroscience from the Institute of Psychiatry (University of London), he completed a PhD in Behavioural Neuroscience at UCL. His postdoctoral training in neuroimaging was with Dick Passingham at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at UCL, Paul Matthews (FMRIB, University of Oxford), and with Chris Miall (University Laboratory of Physiology, Oxford). His current roles include President Elect of the British Neuroscience Association (BNA); Vice Dean for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the School of Life Sciences and the Environment at Royal Holloway; member of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Expert Advisory Group; and member of the Advisory Council of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee, an All Party Parliamentary Group which provides a forum for scientists and parliamentarians to interact. He was awarded the <a href="https://www.alba.network/alba-fkne-diversity-prize-2024-winner" title="https://www.alba.network/alba-fkne-diversity-prize-2024-winner" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">2024 ALBA-FKNE Diversity Prize</a> for his contributions to advancing diversity and inclusion in brain research.

<a href="https://www.nurasidarus.com/" title="https://www.nurasidarus.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dr Nura Sidarus</a>Lecturer in Cognitive Neuroscience in the Psychology Department at Royal Holloway, University of London (RHUL), and Affiliate Member of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College London, UK. Previously, she completed an MSc and a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience at University College London, and conducted postdoctoral research at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, and at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS), Paris. Her research investigates how we monitor and control our cognition and our actions, and how this interacts with decision-making and learning. Combining cognitive, computational, and neuroimaging methods, her work aims to elucidate these (meta)cognitive mechanisms, and how alterations may be linked to mental health issues, like depression. She has also been actively promoting Equity, Diversity &amp; Inclusion in academia, namely through founding a departmental Equality &amp; Diversity steering committee at ENS, Paris; co-leading Women in Cognitive Science - Europe; or chairing the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion team in the Psychology Department, and being a member of the Gender Equality Group at RHUL.

Participants will receive an email with a link to join the meeting 1 day before the event. Any other questions or issues, please contact<a href="https://mailto:wics.europe@gmail.com/" title="https://mailto:wics.europe@gmail.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer"> </a><a href="https://mailto:wics.europe@gmail.com/" title="https://mailto:wics.europe@gmail.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">wics.europe@gmail.com</a> Co-organised by <a href="https://www.nurasidarus.com/" title="https://www.nurasidarus.com/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dr Nura Sidarus</a> (chair) and <a href="https://nl.linkedin.com/in/mjmaraver" title="https://nl.linkedin.com/in/mjmaraver" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Dr María Jesús Maraver</a> (facilitator; Mind, Brain, and Behavior Research Center (CIMCYC), University of Granada, Spain).Conceived by Dr Nura Sidarus and <a href="http://womenincogsci.org/announcement/wics-europe" title="http://womenincogsci.org/announcement/wics-europe" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Women in Cognitive Science - Europe (WiCS-E)</a>, with support of the Department of Psychology, <a href="https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk" title="https://www.royalholloway.ac.uk" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Royal Holloway University of London</a>, and <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icn/" title="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/icn/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, UCL</a>.

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Creating an inclusive and anti-racist academia - Online panel discussion

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