Wicked Problems Blog 3 – Diversity and Inclusion

This is the third in a series of blogs devoted to last year’s CIfA Conference Plenary on ‘Wicked Problems’, based on ideas in the book Wicked Problems for Archaeologists: Heritage as a transformative practice by John Schofield. These blogs draw on the comment cards that attendees at Conference submitted which reflected on the content of the session, and the ideas of John’s book, which was shortlisted for a Current Archaeology award.

You can watch last year's Conference sessions - including the 'Wicked Problems' plenary session, and other sessions - here.

The Plenary session Preparing wicked archaeologists for the heritage future at the CIfA conference in April 2025 asked attendees to think about what they’d heard during the two days of the conference, about what the future of archaeology might look like and what actions we’ll need to take to get to the place we want to be. We were all asked to write down our top priority, and just over 100 were submitted which fell into these four themes

• Collaboration and out-of-sector networking
• Diversity and inclusion
• Small wins
• Culture and working practices

This blog focuses on the comments made by the session attendees relating to diversity and inclusion and reflects on CIfA’s work and ‘small wins’ to support these rather than the wider issues of inequalities John addresses in his book. 

The plenary vision

If you attempted to draw together the comments from the plenary session delegates into a succinct vision statement, it could read something like this…

‘To create a new generation of leadership empowering younger, diverse voices; fostering a welcoming, inclusive and representative community; and engaging people at every stage of their career - recognising the collective strength that diversity offers our profession.’

…does this sound too challenging?

In his chapter on Social Injustice, John makes reference to the Historic England (2020-2023) and Museums Association (2017) definitions of diversity, inclusion and equality. In these, diversity is defined as any characteristic which can differentiate groups and individuals from one another – including the protected characteristics defined by the Equalities Act 2010 and other characteristics such as socioeconomic background and status; inclusion recognises that people need to feel connected and engaged, valued, respected and supported.

Individually we all want to be valued, respected and supported. Equally, we recognise the value of diversity of thought, perspectives and life experiences, and see how these can enhance our strategies, projects, interpretations, solutions and storytelling. But as with the elements of every wicked problem, the reasons why these things become challenging are complex, and may even seem impossible to achieve. The recent report from CIPD Resetting EDI and reaffirming inclusion draws out some of these complexities.

Many of us may consider equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) issues and think of challenges such as overcoming the gender pay gap, ensuring people with childcare duties can progress their careers, or working to achieve a demographically representative discipline. These are archetypal wicked problems, which John's book does considerable work to help us to break into smaller, more digestible chunks. CIfA knows that it does not have avenues to fully solve these issues, nor the ability to move as fast as we'd like on some of the actions that might be available were there more resources to deploy. But there are some ‘small wins’ happening as steps towards that potential vision statement from conference attendees.

The small wins

CIfA’s current strategic plan and vision aspires to have ‘a larger, more diverse and inclusive profession’ offering a ‘wider range of expertise and better reflect its relevance to society’. The emphasis on ‘current’ is recognising that this is not a new aspiration for the Institute and its members.

The definition of inclusion above is how the CIfA Board, Advisory Council and staff want people to feel about their membership. Our communications have been refocusing on the message that CIfA is a member-led organisation and the professional home for archaeologists. Our groups and networks represent a wide range of specialisms and topics and are providing exciting opportunities for any members who want to be actively engaged. Our promotion of what CIfA offers and what accreditation means is aiming to demonstrate an inclusive and welcoming professional institute.

In 2023 we published the report from the Qualitative inequalities research for the archaeological sector project supported by Historic England. This project carried out research into four areas: inequalities relating to ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic group and disability, including any barriers inadvertently created by CIfA processes or criteria.

One of the six recommendations from this report highlighted the need for us to review our accreditation processes, addressing barriers and providing more support through CIfA’s professional pathway. As a result over the past 18-months we have undertaken a detailed review of our accreditation process and the information we have on our website. This work benefited from valuable input from our members – particularly members of our neurodiversity network - who provided feedback on the application process and the challenges they found with this. With their help we have been able to outline the criteria and process for accreditation more clearly and introduce a wider range of guidance videos, statement of competence examples, sample questions, resources for interview and our online application workshops.

The project report also highlighted the barriers to entry into the industry particularly around the perceived gulf between academic training and the skills required to work in archaeology. CIfA’s strategic work to develop diverse entry routes into the profession aims to directly address this barrier. Over recent years we have launched an accredited degree programme with UAUK,  supported the introduction of archaeological apprenticeships in England and made good progress with the development of an apprenticeship framework in Scotland. These schemes ensure that these training programmes include the practical and professional skills needed to work in archaeology and to gain the first levels of CIfA accreditation, making our industry and profession more accessible for the younger, newer, and early career voices we want from that vision. The apprenticeship programme also, in theory, should support those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds to access equivalent study to that provided by universities[1], and those who prefer practical training, earning a salary while gaining skills. But this is where the challenge evolves from what is in CIfA’s hands to develop, to where the sector needs to embrace these new routes into its recruitment processes to move from theory to reality.

The next challenge

If these initiatives are to have the impacts we hope, our next challenge is to look at leadership. There are already many visible, positive leaders in our profession. And it’s important to recognise that many of these also started as the early career voices of the past, working through their career pathways and building on their life experiences. But we need to provide opportunities for even more people to move into and thrive in these positions. At present, as shown in the Historic England Sector recruitment analysis report 2024, leadership and management are skills the sector looks for less as part of its recruitment processes, potentially as they are associated with greater seniority and therefore fewer roles. Is this right, or should leadership and management skills be integral in career development at all levels?

Again, the Qualitative inequalities research report makes a recommendation in this area suggesting the initiation of a programme of leadership development for archaeologists. This time the recommendation is for the sector and not just CIfA. Through CIfAs developing training programme we plan to provide some aspects of leadership training, but we need to look at a more holistic approach to supporting the future generation of leaders.

John also reflects on leadership in the transformations section of his book and although set in an academic context should apply more widely. If we want to keep driving forward for the inclusive and representative community we aspire to – and to have diverse perspectives to tackle the ‘wicked problems’ - we need ‘collaborative, passionate future leaders inspiring an even more collaborative and passionate next generation’[2].

So how do we achieve this? If you’ve got thoughts on developing a leadership programme for archaeologists or have examples of effective leadership programmes you can share, we’d be keen to hear more.