2026 Annual Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Conference: Engineering for Communities ONLINE

The Academy’s annual Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) conference has as its theme this year ‘Engineering for Communities’ – creating inclusive cultures within engineering to ensure we can better serve diverse communities. It will be convening people from different sectors, regions and disciplines to collaborate and exchange ideas on how we can create psychologically safe environments and inclusive engineering practice that meets the needs of society. Attendees can expect to learn practical applications to foster psychological safety in their own organisations, through: 

• A keynote speech from Dame Judith Hackitt DBE FREng on the importance of psychological safety in engineering 

• 'Safe to speak: Turning voice into value' - a panel discussion chaired by Dame Judith to hear insights on what this means for different engineering fields. Our panellists are: 
  - Joshua Macabuag OBE FREng, co-founder of Renew Risk and exceptional leader in disaster response in urban and search rescue 
  - Professor Danail Stoyanov FREng, an expert on surgical AI and robotics with a focus on minimally invasive surgeries 
  - Chris Taylor, Head of Safety and Assurance Delivery at NATS with a wealth of experience in change management 

• Micro-presentations on how psychological safety has been achieved in other organisations, such as Google and Expedition Engineering.