We at the Sloan Foundation believe that promoting the health of the scientific research community is essential to supporting scientific research itself. A profound challenge to that health is the historical exclusion from scientific institutions of women and members of Black, Indigenous, and Latine communities, and the discrimination and disadvantage these scientists have long faced. Moreover, discrimination and exclusion, by suppressing the contributions of so many talented people, is unjust and keeps some of the best research from being done at all.

A commitment to advancing access and opportunity in science has deep roots at the Sloan Foundation. In the 1950s and 1960s, Sloan himself made major grants to support Historically Black Colleges and Universities and the United Negro College Fund. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Foundation continued this tradition with major grant initiatives aimed at diversifying academic training programs in public administration, engineering, and medicine. But while such commitments are long-standing, it is incumbent upon us now to make them explicit and public.

The Sloan Foundation’s mission is to make the world a better place by advancing the frontiers of knowledge. We pledge to pursue that mission in ways that make the institutions of scientific endeavor more welcoming and inclusive. In pursuit of this commitment, we encourage grant applications from members of groups that are underrepresented in their fields; we cultivate diversity among the institutions that receive Foundation support, with particular attention to increasing our engagement with Minority Serving Institutions; we require all Foundation-supported projects to be structured to be as inclusive as possible; and we make significant grants that directly address issues of representation and inclusion in STEM.

At the same time, we emphasize that we do not have all the answers. We recognize that our efforts to promote equity and inclusion will sometimes fall short of what they could or should be. What we can do is pledge to continuously improve; to seek honest feedback even — and especially — when it’s hard to hear; to engage in critical self-reflection; and to attend to our own institutional culture.

Bringing about full and equitable participation in STEM cannot be the work of just one or a few isolated institutions. It must be the work of all of us. The tangible progress that hardworking, dedicated advocates are making inspires and empowers us at the Sloan Foundation, and we look forward with enthusiasm to working with those both inside and outside academia — educators, administrators, students, policymakers, funders, anyone — in efforts to realize our common vision: a scientific community that is more humane, more inclusive, and more just.