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Diversity & Inclusion

Diversity & Inclusion IfSE logo

ASEC 2025

D&I Presence:

Some members of the committee and the wider group will be attending the Annual Systems Engineering Conference (ASEC) this year. Whether you want to get involved, ask any questions, or just fancy a chat about D&I in Systems Engineering, come and chat to us! See below for names and photos so you can find us at the event.

Brooke Lewis (she/her),

Committee Chair 

Garrie James (she/they),

Committee Treasurer

Lisa Pritchard (she/her),

Group Founder + UKAB Chair

Tim Rabbets (he/him),

IfSE Outreach Director
Brooke Lewis

Ben Smith (he/they),

Group Member

Charlie Kenney (she/her),

Group Member

David Byrne (he/him),

Group Member

Adriana D'Souza (she/her),

Group Member

Group Poster:

Every year, all IfSE Groups design an A2 poster for display at ASEC (you can see and download ours by visting the documents tab on the menu to the left). 

This year, we designed our poster in accordance with guidance from Solopress, who produced accessible poster templates approved by the British Dyslexia Association.

These templates were designed to be easier to read and understand by a wider audience, including individuals with dyslexia, colour blindness, visual impairments, early dementia, ADHD and related neurodivergent differences, and literacy difficulties.

Some elements we considered when curating our poster include:

  • Colour choices
    • High colour contrast: Web Content Accessibility Guidelines suggest a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 (text:background colours), to ensure text is legible particularly by those with dyslexia, colour blindness or other visual impairments. There are multiple free online tools you can use to check the contrast of your content, we used: WebAIM: Contrast Checker.
  • Fonts
    • Size: Solopress recommend to size text such that it is readable from a distance of 15-feet. Our poster is A2, so we chose a minimum text size of 32.
    • Font choice: Simpler fonts with more rounded features and greater spacing between letters are generally easier to read; those with sharp edges or decorative details are more susceptible to warping or blurring when read. We used font 'Overpass', but other suggested fonts include Sans Serif fonts like Helvetica, Verdana or Arial.
    • Alignment: Left aligned text is recommended for accessibility. Thus, all text on our poster is aligned as such.
  • Layout
    • Structure: An accessible poster should guide the user's eyes through the content. This can be achieved by clear sectioning, which we employed in our poster, or through other methods like formatting the text you want to be read first in a larger font, or by including arrows or 'paths', as we did to present our timeline of achievements.
    • Spacing: Empty space is valuable when it comes to accessibility. Avoid blocks of text where possible, which can be easily achieved by using bullet points, prioritising conciseness, and only including content which is is essential to the poster.
    • Word order: front-loaded sentences, where the most important words are at the beginning, are more effective as they can convey their message more quickly. 

This guidance is not just applicable to posters, but for all materials designed for print or web display, from websites, to business cards, to banners. 

 

Committee Overview

Background:

The D&I Committee originally began as a UKAB Collaboration Group in October 2023. This was created to increase inclusivity & diversity across the (then) INCOSE UK Membership, UKAB & Council.

Three of the Collaboration Group’s main achievements include:

  • Organising and running dedicated D&I classroom and panel sessions at ASEC 2024
  • Collaborating with D&I representatives from The RAEng and SheCanEngineer
  • Running a UKAB and Council awareness day with a focus on LGBTQ+/menopause/neurodiversity.

Its success led to the transition to a formalised Committee in March 2025, which is open to all IfSE Members.

Objectives:

  • To provide guidance to the IfSE Council on how to increase D&I (in all forms) in Systems Engineering
  • To highlight why everyone (employees, employers, Professional Engineering Institutions) should take D&I seriously
  • To support the Council in achieving their D&I Strategy
  • To provide support to IfSE members in accordance with the D&I Strategy

Get Involved:

Join our mailing list to stay up to date with our activities and to receive invites to our monthly meetings. To do this, add Diversity and Inclusion to your personal "My Interests" page in your member profile: Register your interest here.

Monthly meetings are usually held on the last Friday of every month, via MS Teams. We welcome anyone with a remote interest in D&I, whether that means wanting to gain greater awareness, to join a community of like-minded individuals, or to have the opportunity for advocacy. For more details, see our Events page.

You can also stay up to date with our activities on LinkedIn: Connect with us on LinkedIn