External advisory group for equality, diversity and inclusion

UKRI engages with a wide range of research and innovation stakeholders. The external advisory group provides advice and challenge, working with us to identify and prioritise areas where we can make most progress.

The group is chaired by Dr Karen Salt, Deputy Director for Research Culture and Environment for UKRI.

The group brings together both national and international experts from across the public, private and charitable sectors.

Learn more about our equality, diversity and inclusion external advisory group members:

Dr Dina Belluigi

Dina Zoe Belluigi is an academic of higher education studies currently based in Northern Ireland at Queen’s University Belfast. Before this, she was a senior lecturer at Rhodes University in South Africa.

Her research and teaching focus is on issues of agency and social justice in the academy, in the larger ecology of authority and critical citizenry, and in contexts grappling with legacy issues, particularly inequality. She is an Associate Fellow of the George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice and a member of the British Academy Critical University Studies network.

Zamila Bunglawala

Zamila Bunglawala is a Deputy Director of the Cabinet Office. She has extensive extensive experience in senior roles focusing on national and international policy, strategy and programmes, including with:

• Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit
• Cabinet Office
• central Whitehall departments
• Open Society Foundation
• Young Foundation
• Brookings Institution
• United Nations in Darfur, Sudan and Kathmandu, Nepal.

Zamila has led a wide range of policy and programme projects including the Race Disparity Audit and specialises in education and employment, gender, sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), ethnic and faith minority groups, humanitarian conflicts and development.

She is widely published and is an international public policy speaker on gender and minority equality issues and appears regularly in print media and TV.

Dr Rosanna Duncan

Dr Rosanna Duncan is Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Palladium, a global impact firm working to link social progress and commercial growth.

She draws upon more than 20 years of experience of working within the field of diversity and inclusion (D&I) that includes embedding D&I contractor requirements into Europe’s largest infrastructure project, High Speed Rail Ltd.

Underpinning and enhancing her experience are a PhD that explored the implementation of D&I within the construction process and chartered membership of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, as well as a significant body of research and internationally published work on a range of D&I-related topics.

Zabeen Hirji

Zabeen is Strategic Advisor, Private and Public sector, on future of work, equity, diversity and inclusion, and talent management. Her work focuses on ‘building inclusive prosperity through unlocking the potential of people, all people’.

Zabeen was the Chief Human Resources Officer at the Royal Bank of Canada until 2017 with global responsibility for human resources, brand, communications and corporate citizenship.

She has been a diversity and inclusion advisor to the Clerk of the Privy Council and currently advises the President of Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Zabeen’s recent recognition includes:

• Canada’s Meritorious Service Medal for advancing diversity and inclusion
• Outstanding Alumni Award from Simon Fraser University
• Catalyst Canada Honours Champion for leadership in the advancement of women and minorities
• Canada’s Most Powerful Women – Top 100 Hall of Fame inductee
• Top 25 Woman of Influence.

Professor Wendy Loretto

Professor Wendy Loretto is Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Dean at the University of Edinburgh Business School.

She has previously held several leadership roles in the School, including Director of Research and Director of Undergraduate Programmes.

Her main research field is age and employment, with a particular focus on changes in employees’ and employers’ attitudes and practices in extending working lives. She is especially interested in the ways in which gender, age and health interact to affect work and retirement experiences amongst older men and women across Europe.

Her work has received funding from research councils, industry partners, government and EU and is published widely in leading academic journals. She is on the boards of Edinburgh Innovation and the Standard Life Foundation.

Simon McKeown

Simon is an award-winning and internationally-exhibiting disabled artist renowned for his work which touches on and considers disability.

Simon Mckeown is also Reader and researcher at one of the UK’s leading universities for digital innovation and practice, Teesside University.

McKeown exhibits internationally as far afield as the Smithsonian International in the US, the DOX Centre for Contemporary Art in Prague and Cork, Ireland.

Dr Claire Murray

Dr Claire Murray is an early career chemist working at Diamond Light Source.

Alongside her research interests in catalysis and supramolecular chemistry, she has developed and delivered events promoting diversity in science to primary and secondary students, focusing on raising the profile of female scientists and encouraging young people to experience science.

Her recent national schools engagement project – Project M – engaged students at over 100 schools with synchrotron science, and has won awards from the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) and Costa Foundation.

She has contributed to the successful Athena Swan Bronze award application at Diamond Light Source and is a regular panellist for the peer review assessment process.

Professor Eugene Oteng-Ntim

Professor Eugene Oteng-Ntim is a consultant obstetrician at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, a Reader at Kings College London and Honorary Associate Professor at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

He graduated in Medicine at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Medical School and University of London in 1991. He became a consultant in his alma mater hospital since 2004. He has gained knowledge and valuable experience from working in other institutions such as Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals.

After becoming a consultant, he embarked on a PhD in epidemiology and population health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and was awarded his doctorate in 2015. He has a significant research portfolio with grants from the Medical Research Council (MRC), National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and Big Lottery all with a focus on women’s health, population health and inequality.

His specific clinical research interest has focused on sickle cell disease in pregnancy, obesity in pregnancy and addressing inequality in outcomes for women. He has mentored diverse group of medical students into academia, helping them to overcome any barriers and challenges they may encounter.

He is a fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and sits on the Royal Society of Medicine committee, section on obstetrics and gynaecology. He is a medical advisor to the charity Sickle Cell Society.

Professor Giovanni Razzu

Giovanni Razzu is Professor of Economics of Public Policy and Head of the Department of Economics at the University of Reading.

He has served as the UK representative on the expert board of the European Institute for Gender Equality and on its working groups on the Gender Equality Index and the Benefits of Equality.

Before joining the University of Reading, he worked in the Cabinet Office where he has been lead analyst for the Equalities Review led by Trevor Phillips, which set the foundations for the Equality Measurement Framework now used by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). He has also worked for the Government Equalities Office, where he led the Secretariat to the National Equality Panel, which produced and Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the US.

Professor Tom Welton

Tom Welton is Dean of the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Imperial College where he is a longstanding champion of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

He has worked with many universities and departments to help to build their EDI action plans.

Last updated: 19 March 2021