Dear Jean and Mark,

We welcome the commitment in your recent respective updates at the Town Hall to having an open and inclusive conversation and to define an action plan in order to understand issues related to EDI at the Turing Institute.

In your comments during last Monday's Town Hall, you said the Institute is at a critical moment of making **choices** to align with Turing 2.0. We believe strongly that one of these choices should be to follow through on longstanding commitments to prioritise equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) and take clear, deliberate actions to achieving true diversity and inclusion at the Institute.

EDI is integral to [the Turing 2.0 strategy](https://www.turing.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2023-03/turing_2.0_-_institute_strategy_-_final.pdf) as it has been embedded thematically across the strategy. To be clear, it states: "To make the great leaps in research that we aspire to, we promote and embed equality, diversity and inclusion in all of our functions and activities. Our EDI Strategy details our commitment to how we are tackling this challenge through our roles as an employer, a research institute and a national leader" (p. 23).

The Institute made a decision to prioritise EDI, making it one of the ten principles of the Turing 2.0 strategy, which has been welcomed and endorsed by our funders and stakeholders. As you continue to make choices about aligning the Institute with Turing 2.0, we continue to ask you to remember and *actively* honour the EDI commitments outlined in the strategy.

During the Town Hall, the need to have diverse teams of scientists to achieve Turing 2.0 was mentioned. However, this diversity must not begin and end with teams of scientists. It must also include senior leadership. The strategy's positioning of our value as a national institute and as a national leader states that "Our remit is one of national leadership, . . . This leadership extends not only to science and innovation, but also to . . . leading on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)" (p. 13).

It was mentioned in the Town Hall that there is a "perceived lack of trust" in the Turing's leadership from the Turing community and no clear understanding about its source. We feel a major source of this loss of trust stems from the appearance of failure by the Institute to uphold the EDI principles on which it was founded. The Institute has expressed commitment to a number of charters including Athena Swan and Stonewall; however, little, if any, work has happened relating to these charters over several years. The frequent claims made in Institute communications and annual reports about our commitment to EDI ring hollow when there is little evidence that these principles are being actioned in any meaningful way. In light of this, we believe committing to and following through on the below concrete actions and commitments from the Executive Leadership team, built on the requests in the [open letter](https://hackmd.io/VbX3jhVwQJy_hAAIpuofNg?view), is a step towards restoring trust.

**We kindly request confirmation by EOD 20th of March that the following will be included as part of an action plan to be shared with the community:**

- Provide a full and reflective accounting of the recruiting, interview, and hiring process for the four new directors and explain clearly why the four chosen candidates reflect no apparent gender diversity. This account should include an acknowledgement that the Institute's EDI goals were not met with these hires and a commitment to remedy the process to avoid a similar result in the future. Furthermore, this should outline how, and if, this process has been consistent with other senior hires, especially those who are members of the Board and ELT, and other hiring decisions that senior leaders have been involved with.
- Update the Turing's governance documents to require benchmark hiring goals at all levels of the hierarchy and mandatory reporting of progress towards these goals for greater transparency and accountability (incorporate target setting based on new benchmark data).
- Expand EDI policies and frameworks to include requirements of Equality Impact Assessments when recruiting for all positions, including senior positions, and ensure the EDI Action Plan is extended past its end of 2024 expiration date
- Enforce the mandated diversity training for the Turing Board of Trustees and the Executive Leadership Team detailed in the EDI Action Plan 1.5.
- Express commitment to include an EDI representative (either a member of the EDI team or a Chair of an EDI Network Group) on all senior management hires.
- Clarify how EDI Network, EDI Chairs, and EDI Advisory Meetings feed into ELT and decision making processes.
- Provide in writing a commitment to immediately begin working with the Turing community, both staff and stakeholders, including the EDI Network Groups, on how to repair trust and build a truly inclusive work environment.
- Additionally, we expect the forthcoming action plan to be fully implemented, not only in the recruitment of any mission leads for each grand challenge, but also in the individual recruitment of all the junior researchers that will sit under the grand challenges. This new round of hiring is an opportunity for senior leadership to demonstrate a concrete application of the Turing values, and we will expect and demand a high degree of transparency into the process and outcomes of selecting mission leads and the teams that will support the delivery of a key component of the Turing 2.0 and in alignment with the principles it outlines.

While we hope to work together to restore trust and to continue to promote open and cordial relations between the Turing's leadership and staff, it is a matter of urgency that these issues be addressed to ensure that the Turing community feels heard and that our concerned external partners are promptly assured that the Institute takes equality and diversity seriously.

We respectfully request an open and substantive response by the deadline stated above. In the event that this deadline is not met, the community will be consulted as to further collective action needed to protect the institute and its reputation.

We look forward to hearing back from you regarding the above points and continuing to discuss this important topic openly and collaboratively to work towards more inclusive and diverse representation at The Alan Turing Institute.

Sincerely,

Members of the Turing Community