We hosted our 4th Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace Conference at the University of Reading, UK on Monday 8th June 2026. This conference followed on from our successful 1st Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace, 2nd Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace and 3rd Accommodating Diversity in the Workplace conferences. Thank you to everyone who participated and especially to our speakers. This interdisciplinary conference was aimed at academics, practitioners, employers and anyone interested in issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace and their implications for workplace practice.. You can catch up with the presentations below:
Patrizia Kokot-Blamey (Queen Mary University of London) kicked off the conference with her presentation: Imagining working parenthood: young people’s moral economies of when to return to work after having a baby, This followed on from her presentation in our 2025/2026 webinar series on Gender, career aspirations and plans for family formation among UK HE students.
Caroline Biddle (Manchester Metropolitan University) continued the theme of fertility and parenthood with her presentation: Managing (In)Fertility in the Workplace: Line Manager Support for Women Undergoing Fertility Treatment, It was great to hear research on line managers who are under-studied.
Jagriti Tanwar (University of Westminster) kicked off our second session with her presentation: From Entry-Level to Management: A Gendered Analysis of the Impact of First-Job Occupation and Occupational Mobility on Workplace Authority in the UK.
Catherine Wilton (University of Reading) then presented her MSc work: Resourcing Women Through Menopause at Work: Coaching for Psychological Capital to Buffer the Demands of Mid Life.
Frances Hamilton (University of Reading) presented her joint work with Devran Gülel: The Researched and the Resistant: Obstacles to Conducting Feminist Scholarship on Workplace Gender Inequality. It was great to hear how this research had developed since their last presentation at our 2024/2025 conference.
After lunch we had a session exploring neurodiversity and the workplace. Claudia Plowden Robert (Institute for Employment Studies) and Stevie Barnes (UCL) presented their work: Behind the masks – good work for autistic women. And do check out the fantastic toolkit stemming from this research.
Lisa Barclay (University of Reading) followed up with work from her PhD: “It feels easier being me”. Flexible Working Practices and the Inclusion of Neurodivergent Employees: Evidence Across Three Work Outcomes
Haffsa Rizwani (University of Reading) started our final session with her presentation: Women Doing Careers. Her research explores gender imbalance in leadership positions in Sweden. The conference concluded with Mabel Nwokoloh (University of Reading) presenting her work From Page to Practice: A Whole-School Literature Framework for Building Inclusion Literacy. This was a fascinating end to the day with Mabel showing how the framework she presented could be transferred to workplaces.
We are hoping to host a 5th conference in 2027 and details will be released in due course. We also run a webinar series, you can click here to register for the webinar series and catch up on previous webinars on the 2024/2025 webinar series page and 2025/2026 webinar series page. We are planning the 2026/2027 webinar series and details will be released in due course. If you would like to present in the webinar series or have suggestions for presenters, please contact Professor Sarah Jewell (s.l.jewell@reading.ac.uk).