Gladstone’s Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Our Strategy

In 2021, Gladstone launched a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy. The primary purpose of this strategy is to guide us in increasing the representation within our community of groups underrepresented in biomedical research, while creating an environment where every individual feels they belong and has opportunities to grow and contribute. 

We are also determined for Gladstone to be an organization that goes beyond not tolerating racism, discrimination, and harassment by taking an active stance against these serious issues.

This comprehensive plan outlines a series of tangible actions to advance with diversity, equity and inclusion. It is divided into four broad objectives:

1. Increase the diversity of Gladstone’s community.
2. Provide equitable opportunities for growth, contribution, and advancement to every member of Gladstone’s internal community.
3. Ensure all community members at Gladstone feel included.
4. Implement accountability measures and reinforce Gladstone’s commitment to having an environment free of harassment.

Gladstone’s DEI Strategy

Factors of Success

We believe that three elements are critical to the success of this strategy.

• Transparency
  We commit to openly sharing our victories and shortcomings, because only by being honest can we truly make progress.
• Accountability
  We can no longer make excuses for the inequities of our world or the systems we have inherited. We, as an organization and as individuals, must take responsibility for our actions, as well as our inactions. We will closely track our journey and, if we stray or fall behind on our goals, we will own up to it and make the necessary adjustments to get back on track.
• People
  They—or we—are the very reason this plan exists. The ultimate goal is to make a better, more just, more inclusive workplace for everyone. And each one of us is instrumental in making this a reality.

Moving the Needle

As we launch our strategy, we can already report on some important accomplishments. While we still have a long way to go, these are a few first steps in the right direction.

• Established the Diversity Champion Award to recognize efforts to increase diversity and foster an inclusive environment.
• Formed a new community group, Elevated Voices, aimed at increasing awareness of issues facing traditionally underrepresented groups.
• Launched an employee engagement program to identify challenges or concerns that Gladstonians are facing, in order to improve institutional culture and experience.
• Launched the series Critical Conversations to bring in diverse speakers to challenge and empower the Gladstone community by shifting and reframing their perspectives.
• Launched Amplified: Race and Reality in STEM, a national platform to have candid conversations around race and diversity and a commitment to keep the Black Lives Matter movement part of the conversation.
• Created Embark, Gladstone’s Presidential Postdoctoral Program, aimed to recruit postdocs from historically underrepresented groups.
• Increased diversity in our scientific executive committee by creating a new seat reserved for a qualified individual from a group underrepresented in the sciences, such as a female, Black, or Latinx investigator.
• Partnered with the PROPEL program at UCSF—a paid research opportunity for incoming post-bac researchers from groups underrepresented in science—to recruit research associates or other scientists from underrepresented groups.
• Transformed restrooms on each floor of Gladstone’s building into gender-inclusive restrooms.
• Updated the building’s main entrance by adding automatic doors to make it more accessible to everyone.
• Implemented a system that allows employees to anonymously report incidents related to violations of Gladstone’s code of conduct and policies, including discrimination and allegations of sexual or other harassment.

Action Plan