Providing staff with a broad range of development opportunities is central to our DEI work at Brookings. This past year, offerings included an all-staff keynote session on how to understand and leverage the power of generational diversity in the workplace and an equity-informed leadership skills training with targeted follow-up for both people managers and individual contributors.

We have also continued our highly regarded Racial Equity in Research seminar series, featuring external experts who share their research and methodology with Brookings staff. Since 2021, this series has helped to establish a shared foundation for members of the Brookings community to center and advance racial equity in our research, with a focus on the language we use, the methods we employ, and the questions we ask.

In 2022, the Brookings Board of Trustees launched a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, led by Trustees Tim Ryan and Cheryl Crazy Bull and composed of members with a broad range of relevant backgrounds. With a focus on supporting new and existing efforts related to DEI at Brookings, committee members bring their experience and perspectives to the goals of building a more diverse staff and Board and of deploying best practices related to DEI and workforce development in the year ahead.

To help increase the racial, gender, and socioeconomic diversity of the pipeline of students pursuing majors and graduate work in economics, Brookings partnered with the Expanding Diversity in Economics Summer Institute sponsored by the Becker-Friedman Institute for Economics at the University of Chicago. Brookings’s Economic Studies program hosted 45 undergraduate students in Washington, D.C., for a week in June 2023. Program participants met with scholars at Brookings; visited major economic policymaking institutions, such as the Treasury Department, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Federal Reserve Board; and networked with early career staff at a number of think tanks.

Additionally, to help address the dearth of Black women in economics and related fields, the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy has partnered with the Sadie Collective since 2019 to host a research reception celebrating the work of young Black female economists from all stages of the pipeline. During the February 2023 reception, held ahead of the collective’s annual conference, the Federal Reserve’s Lisa Cook delivered opening remarks and six scholars presented their work on a variety of topics.

In April 2023, Brookings announced a partnership with HUMANLEVEL, a nonprofit initiative founded by artist and activist John Legend to uplift communities disproportionately impacted by institutionalized racism. The partnership aims to improve well-being, equity, and upward economic mobility for communities nationwide by bringing together racial equity research and local action. The partnership’s first report, exploring why the study of well-being is crucial for race relations and advancing prosperity, featured new data that represents the longest continuous time series of life evaluation data by race and ethnicity ever published. The partnership’s launch was commemorated at an event in Washington, D.C., in which John Legend joined Brookings Senior Fellows Andre Perry and Camille Busette.

Brookings strives to foster an inclusive workplace in which world-class talent can thrive and do meaningful work. In 2023, the Institution reached an initial agreement with Brookings United, our new staff union. This agreement governs key aspects of employment for our unionized staff and reinforces our ongoing efforts to ensure that all our employees are valued, engaged, and supported. Importantly, the agreement also establishes the groundwork for future negotiations on a comprehensive, multi-year collective bargaining agreement. As Brookings continues to tackle the world’s most important policy issues, we are committed to maintaining a positive and collaborative relationship with our union, and to working together to build a better future for Brookings and all our employees.