Our Approach and Goals

Women leave engineering at a much higher rate than men, often citing an unwelcoming workplace culture as a factor in their decision. Our prior research with engineers suggests that fostering inclusion, respect, and allyship between men and women can improve women’s feelings of identity safety. Additionally, improving awareness, understanding, and effort to reduce bias can help to create an organizational culture of inclusion. Workplace trainings are a key strategy for educating people about bias and strategies for inclusion, yet little is understood about their measured effectiveness.

How can we educate professionals about implicit bias in a way that fosters mutual respect, motivates allyship behavior, and creates a more inclusive culture in the workplace? Project RISE harnesses our understanding of implicit bias, intergroup contact, and social identity threat to create a more “identity safe” workplace culture.

Stage

Professionals in STEM

Key Obstacle

Culture of Exclusion

Goals

Create identity-safe interactions to foster a sense of inclusion

Project RISE: Inclusive Innovation tests new methods for enhancing inclusion at organizations using evidence-based strategies. Project RISE aims to create positive cultural change for professionals working in science and engineering by delivering workshops that:

Educate participants about implicit bias
Apply techniques to increase openness and understanding of the consequences of bias
Provide participants with a clear understanding for how to engage in effective allyship behavior
Foster supportive and respectful interactions between men and women in the organization

Research Spotlight

Workplace Culture Survey

The 2018 RISE Workplace Culture Survey assessed the culture experienced by women and men scientists and engineers across nine Canadian organizations. Our goal was to understand organizational culture at three distinct, but interconnected, levels:

Institutional policies and practices,
Interpersonal relationships among colleagues, and
Individual beliefs and biases of men and women in the workplace.

Our research identified gender-inclusive policies, allyship, and implicit gender biases as key predictors of women’s fit and identity threat in the workplace.

Cultivating Collaborative Cultures

Project RISE: Cultivating Collaborative Cultures is a research partnership among social scientists, STEM experts, and organizational partners committed to fostering gender diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). These in-person workshops employed a randomized control trial design, the gold standard in research, to assess effects of an in-person, interactive half-day workshop on Inclusive Innovation compared with a parallel workshop on Influential Leaders.

Relative to the Leadership workshop, our in-person Inclusive Innovation workshop increases (1) participants’ ability to recognize instances of implicit gender bias, (2) awareness of their own gender stereotypes (especially among men) , (3) the belief that gender bias in STEM is a problem, especially among those most skeptical at baseline, and (4) the belief that men can be particularly effective at fostering inclusion through allyship.

Inclusive Innovation

Building on our in-person workshops, our Inclusive Innovation workshop is testing the effectiveness of delivering the RISE workshop in a 3.5-hour highly interactive virtual dyadic workshop with key outcomes measured before and after the workshop. Learn more about becoming a partner here.

Photo Credit: UBC Public Affairs

Explore Our Findings

Publications

Identity Fit

Hall, W. M., Schmader, T., Aday, A., and Croft, E. (2019). Decoding the dynamics of social identity threat in the workplace: A within-person analysis of women’s and men’s interactions in STEM.
Hall, W., Schmader, T., Aday, A., Inness, M., & Croft, E. (2018). Climate control: Cultural predictors of social identity threat for women in engineering.
Hall, W., Schmader, T., Inness, M., & Croft, E. (2021). Climate change: Improving norms for inclusion predicts greater fit for women in STEM.
Aday, A., & Schmader, T. (2019). Seeking authenticity in diverse contexts: How identities and environments constrain “free” choice.

Inclusion in Social Networks

Bergsieker, H.B., Wilmot, M. O., Cyr, E.N., & Grey, C. B. (2021). A threat in the network: STEM women in less powerful network positions avoid integrating stereotypically feminine peers.
Cyr, E. N., Bergsieker, H. B., Dennehy, T.C., & Schmader, T. (2021). Mapping social exclusion in STEM to men’s implicit bias and women’s career costs.

Career Pursuits

Block, K., Croft, A., & Schmader, T. (2018). Worth less? Why men (and women) devalue care-oriented careers.
He, J.C., & Kang, S. K. (2021). Covering in Cover Letters: Gender and Self- Presentation in Job Applications.

Gender Roles

Block, K., Croft, A., De Souza, L., & Schmader, T. (2019). Do people care if men don’t care? The asymmetry in support for changing gender roles.
Croft, A., Schmader, T., & Block, K. (2019) Life in the balance: Are women’s career goals constrained by men’s domestic involvement?
Croft, A., Schmader, T., Beall, A., & Schaller, M. (2020). Breadwinner seeks bottle warmer: How women’s future goals predict their mate preferences.

Stereotypes & Bias

Régner, I., Thinus-Blanc, C., Netter, A., Schmader, T., & Huguet, P. (2019). Implicit bias predicts promoting fewer women in science when evaluators deny discrimination.
He, J.C., Kang, S.K., Tse, K., & Toh, S.M. (2019). Stereotypes at work: Occupational stereotypes predict race and gender segregation in the workforce.
Schmader, T., Bareket-Shavit, C., & Baron, A.S. (2022). Beyond awareness: The many forms of implicit bias and its implications.
Schmader, T., Dennehy, T., & Baron, A. (2022). Why antibias interventions (need not) fail. Perspectives in Psychological Science. DOI: 10.1177/17456916211057565www.psychologicalscience.org/PPS, https://psyarxiv.com/5rxk8/

STEM Education

Croft, E. A. & Loughran, J. (2018) ‘Highlighting the “ E ” in STEM : Why engineering should be taught in our schools.’

Allyship

De Souza, L., & Schmader, T. (2021). The misjudgment of men: Does pluralistic ignorance inhibit allyship?

Cultivating Diversity & Inclusion

He, J.C., Agarwal, G., & Kang, S.K. (2022). Applying behavioral insights to cultivate diversity and inclusion.
Kang, S.K., & Kaplan, S. (2019). Working toward gender diversity and inclusion in medicine: Myths and solutions.
Fang, D., Kang, S. K., & Kaplan, S. (2022). We need to make sure telecommuting does not exacerbate gender disparity.
Schmader, T. (2022). Gender disparities and inclusion in STEM.
Hall, W., Schmader, T., Cyr, E.N., & Bergsieker, H.B., (2022). Collectively constructing inclusive organizational cultures in STEM.
Schmader, T., Bergsieker, H.B., & Hall, W.M. (2019). Cracking the culture code: A tri-level model for cultivating inclusion in organizations.

Talks

Annual Meetings

2022 ESS Annual Meeting: Challenges and Opportunities in STEM Research and Practice

View Video

Annual Meetings

2022 ESS Annual Meeting: Gender Identity & Stereotype Development in STEM

View Video

Team Leaders

Hilary Bergsieker PhD

Associate Professor of Social Psychology, University of Waterloo Read Bio

Toni Schmader PhD

ESS Director and Full Professor of Psychology, University of British Columbia Read Bio

The Team

The Project RISE team combines expertise in the science of implicit gender bias, bias reduction, intergroup contact, diversity, and STEM outreach.

Audrey Aday MA

Graduate Student, University of British Columbiaaday@psych.ubc.ca

Rebecca Anderson BA

Graduate Student, Brock Universityra16uj@brocku.ca

Elizabeth Croft PhD

Vice-President Academic and Provost, University of Victoria Read Bio

Emily N. Cyr MA

Graduate Student, University of Waterlooencyr@uwaterloo.ca

Lucy De Souza MA

Graduate Student, University of British Columbialdesouza@psych.ubc.ca

Grace Denney BSc

Graduate Student, University of Waterloograce.denney@uwaterloo.ca

Will Hall PhD

Assistant Professor, Brock Universitywhall@brocku.ca

Joyce He PhD

Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, UCLA Andersonjoyce.he@anderson.ucla.edu
Read Bio

Sonia Kang PhD

Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Identity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Department of Management, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, and Special Advisor on Anti-Racism and Equity, University of Toronto Mississauga Read Bio

Christa Nater PhD

Postdoctoral Fellow, University of British Columbiacnater@psych.ubc.ca
Read Bio

Lesley Shannon PhD

NSERC Chair for Women in Science and Engineering (BC/Yukon); Professor, School of Engineering Sciences, Simon Fraser University Read Bio

Jessica Trickey MA

Graduate Student, University of Waterloojtrickey@uwaterloo.ca

Project Partners

Project RISE proudly partners with the University of British Columbia, University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, Simon Fraser University, Canadian Centre for Women in Science, Engineering, Trades and Technology (WinSETT), City of New Westminster, City of Port Moody, City of Vancouver, CloudArmy, District of West Vancouver, General Motors Canada, Institute for Gender and the Economy (GATE), McElhanney, Metro Vancouver, the National Research Council (NRC), Magnitude Simba Technologies, Teck Resources, Canada’s particle accelerator centre (TRIUMF), Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia, Engineers Canada, the Engineering Change Lab, Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR), the National Network of NSERC Chairs for Women in Science and Engineering, the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology (SCWIST), and the Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCUNESCO).