Leveraging Digital Technology to Improve EDI in Geosciences: GeoCoLab

Geoscience research is inequitably distributed within the UK and worldwide due to a lack of access to analytical facilities and associated funding. This disproportionately affects minority and marginalised researchers. Geoscience research relies on access to analytical facilities to create fundamental datasets; however, lack of analytical facilities access negatively affects success and retention in research, impacting diversity in geoscience. Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) issues in analytical geoscience were investigated through participating in a recent NERC’s Digital Technologies to Open Up Environmental Sciences Digital Sprint hackathon, including an online survey to understand how different groups access analytical facilities globally. Analysis of the survey data revealed a lack of funding to cover analytical costs and prohibitively competitive national schemes as barriers to accessing analytical facilities. The analysis also suggests that a lack of access or perceived lack of access to facilities has stopped 77% of respondents from pursuing an avenue of research, and 71% have switched research topics. To address the access gap, we are developing an app - GeoColab, a digital technology platform to break down barriers in analytical geoscience. The GeoCoLab App funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) aims to solve the lack of access by ‘match–making’ underserved geoscience researchers who need analytical services, with collaborating laboratory facilities that have agreed to offer a quota of pro-bono services.