The Academy of Social Sciences has today announced that it will be supporting the RSS initiative, the Future Leaders programme.
The Future Leaders programme will run throughout 2024 and is aimed at improving the visibility of young professionals from minority groups in data and data-related roles, helping to combat the problem of “you cannot be what you cannot see”.
Funding has been secured for a cohort of 15 people from diverse backgrounds who will be given free membership of the RSS for a year. Our Future Leaders will have access to training, mentoring and speaking opportunities, and they will be supported to volunteer as mentors for other career-young statisticians and data scientists through the RSS mentoring platform.
Working with Society volunteers and staff, our Future Leaders will help shape our programme of events and activities through a new special interest group dedicated to supporting practitioners from underrepresented/underserved groups. Future Leaders will also attend next year’s RSS International Conference to report back to the statistics and data science community at large on their work and learnings to date.
RSS chief executive Dr Sarah Cumbers said: “Our Future Leaders programme will empower statisticians and data scientists from underrepresented groups to become role models, mentors, and spokespeople – showing that careers in data are open to all.”
Cohort members will have at least 3 years’ work experience in data science/statistics roles in academia, the public sector or industry, be based in the UK for at least the next 12 months and identify as coming from a minority ethnic background. Far from seeking professionals from strictly statistics and data roles, the Society is keen to hear applicants from sectors that are not classically considered mathematical but that nonetheless involve the use and analysis of data in all of its multifaceted iterations.
Details of how to nominate or apply to follow.