Toward inclusive energy futures: Reflections on the collective authorship of a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and community-engaged equity, diversity, and inclusion terms of reference

This reflection outlines the development of a Terms of Reference (ToR) for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in a 6-year energy transitions research project spanning 11 institutions and involving 100 researchers across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), social science, and humanities disciplines. This multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project involves partnerships with industry and civil society organizations, attempts to center justice-oriented research, and includes communities and users in knowledge co-production in a field of research and practice known for exclusion and marginalization. An EDI ToR is a guiding document that outlines the shared understandings and practices necessary to foster a safe, equitable, and inclusive research environment. Here we describe how 42 researchers across all career stages and 5 time zones co-authored an EDI ToR that reflects the project’s context and goals while attempting to make the writing process inclusive. Using autoethnography, we reflect on the process of developing this ToR and evaluate its effectiveness in meeting project needs, fostering shared values, and supporting the education and training of diverse early career researchers. We found that, given the complexity of the project, our approach offered a valuable pathway for the team to reflect on shared values by encouraging early and continuous dialog and alignment among researchers. The ToR offered a compass to help researchers make decisions ethically and inclusively. Our contribution is to demonstrate how an EDI ToR development process can foster reflexivity and offer space to address the tensions that inevitably arise within research teams and tensions between the team’s needs and justice-oriented energy research in practice. Drawing on our findings, we recommend that other research teams and funders embed EDI goals, benchmarks, and commitments into their grant proposals and that they hold small-group discussions throughout the EDI ToR development and implementation phases to allow for reflection and iteration.

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Publication Details

Journal
Research Ethics
Published
2026-02-24
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1177/17470161261423564
Primary Topic
Career Development and Diversity
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
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article

Toward inclusive energy futures: Reflections on the collective authorship of a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and community-engaged equity, diversity, and inclusion terms of reference

Heather L. MacLean, Yimin A. Wu, L. Stan Leung, Curtis P. Berlinguette et al.
Research Ethics
Career Development and Diversity
article

Toward inclusive energy futures: Reflections on the collective authorship of a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and community-engaged equity, diversity, and inclusion terms of reference

Heather L. MacLean, Yimin A. Wu, L. Stan Leung, Curtis P. Berlinguette, Vaidehi Pitre, Zahra Azimi Dijvejin, Aimy Bazylak, Tengxiao Ji, Kate J. Neville, Viola Birss, Erica Kilius, Drew Higgins, Joule A. Bergerson, Laurel Besco, Ali Shayesteh Zeraati, Maya Papineau, Leela McKinnon, Jason Riordon, Lila Asher, Cheryl Teelucksingh, Christina E. Hoicka, Melanie Zurba, Aubry S. R. Williams, Shaoxuan Ren, Ryan Bullock, Erika Tizya-Tramm, Emily MacCallum, Nicolas Jekill, Dena Van de Coevering, Sara Chitsaz, Xue Yao, Michael Ross, Dwight S. Seferos, Tracey Galloway, Catherine Shi, Amirhossein Foroozan, SiLang Huang, Suzanne Chew, Mengnan Zhu, Shardul Tiwari, Ahmad Hameed, David Sinton, Christopher Fitzgibbon, David Boon, Eric Riep
article en

Abstract

This reflection outlines the development of a Terms of Reference (ToR) for equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in a 6-year energy transitions research project spanning 11 institutions and involving 100 researchers across science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), social science, and humanities disciplines. This multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional project involves partnerships with industry and civil society organizations, attempts to center justice-oriented research, and includes communities and users in knowledge co-production in a field of research and practice known for exclusion and marginalization. An EDI ToR is a guiding document that outlines the shared understandings and practices necessary to foster a safe, equitable, and inclusive research environment. Here we describe how 42 researchers across all career stages and 5 time zones co-authored an EDI ToR that reflects the project’s context and goals while attempting to make the writing process inclusive. Using autoethnography, we reflect on the process of developing this ToR and evaluate its effectiveness in meeting project needs, fostering shared values, and supporting the education and training of diverse early career researchers. We found that, given the complexity of the project, our approach offered a valuable pathway for the team to reflect on shared values by encouraging early and continuous dialog and alignment among researchers. The ToR offered a compass to help researchers make decisions ethically and inclusively. Our contribution is to demonstrate how an EDI ToR development process can foster reflexivity and offer space to address the tensions that inevitably arise within research teams and tensions between the team’s needs and justice-oriented energy research in practice. Drawing on our findings, we recommend that other research teams and funders embed EDI goals, benchmarks, and commitments into their grant proposals and that they hold small-group discussions throughout the EDI ToR development and implementation phases to allow for reflection and iteration.

Research Ethics
Dalhousie University (CA), University of British Columbia (CA), University of Waterloo (CA), University of Northern British Columbia (CA), University of Calgary (CA), Yukon University (CA), University of Toronto (CA), University of Victoria (CA), Toronto Metropolitan University (CA), Carleton University (CA), The University of Winnipeg (CA), McMaster University (CA)
Reduced inequalities
Openalex Percentile: Top 47%
Career Development and Diversity
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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