Diversity, equity, and inclusion are the central tenets of our program. As articulated in Sloan’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion statement, upholding these tenets is a matter of fundamental justice and our path to ensuring that the best science is done.

When educational settings are diverse, they comprise individuals with a variety of life experiences, whether they be racial, ethnic, economic, cultural, religious, geographic, or otherwise.

Equity and equity-mindedness is found in institutions and individuals who understand that while talent is evenly distributed, opportunity is not, and thus seek to transform organizational practices, policies, and cultures in order to provide all individuals with the tools, resources, and supports needed to succeed at the highest levels.

Inclusion ensures that everyone, regardless of their backgrounds or held identities, feel belonging in a given environment, whether that be a classroom, laboratory, academic department, or entire discipline.

Six equally important strategic priorities guide our grantmaking. In particular, we seek to:

1. Invest in widening pathways to STEM graduate education. The pathway to STEM graduate education is broken for far too many students given systemic barriers faced by individuals and institutions. Among other investments, we seek to support educational pathways from Minority Serving Institutions to master’s and doctoral STEM programs.
2. Empower universities to transform graduate education. Increasing diversity is crucial but not enough. Institutions and their STEM departments must also pursue new and creative ways of ensuring inclusive environments and equitable outcomes for their students. Through the Foundation’s University Centers for Exemplary Mentoring, Sloan Centers for Systemic Change, and Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership, we seek to empower STEM departmental leadership, faculty, and staff in doing just that.
3. Support innovative efforts to increase diversity in the STEM professoriate. Widening the pathway to and through graduate education requires a diverse faculty body, as does the ability of the STEM enterprise to truly innovate. We are interested in investing in efforts by institutions and organizations that seek to transform the culture and climate of STEM departments and disciplines such that more individuals are attracted to the professoriate and supported once there.
4. Pursue systemic change. For too long, systemic change efforts have gone underinvested in and understudied, resulting in stagnant progress on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the STEM disciplines. It’s not enough to promote individual advancement without also seeking to improve the capacity of STEM environments to attend to diversity, equity, and inclusion in their policies and practices, and in the standards and norms carried out by their community members. We seek to empower and equip institutions seeking this kind of change and to support research on how such change happens.
5. Examine our own practices. Any grantmaking process also necessitates looking inward at one’s own practices. We commit to regularly revisiting and evaluating how we do things in order to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion at every stage of the grantmaking process – from the proposals we solicit to the reviewers we appoint.
6. Coordinate and collaborate with others. We recognize that any one organization has a finite amount of dollars and finite amount of influence. We seek to engage private foundations, federal agencies, and corporate funders in enabling systemic change in STEM higher education and the field at large. This includes internal collaboration at Sloan, working alongside and in support of our colleagues in advancing their own DEI agendas.