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IET announces strengthened partnership with AFBE-UK

Published: Thu 10 Aug 2023

The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) has further cemented its partnership with the Association For Black and Minority Ethnic Engineers (AFBE-UK) to further drive equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) across the engineering and technology sectors.

AFBE-UK promotes higher achievements in education and engineering careers among people from Black and Minority Ethnic backgrounds across the UK. It helps organisations do better when it comes to EDI, and offers networking, mentoring, educational resources and opportunities – since its launch in 2007, AFBE-UK outreach programmes have reached over 20,000 individuals from minority groups across the country.

Formalising and celebrating this partnership will see AFBE-UK further support the IET with its EDI strategy and recruitment processes, as well as assisting the IET’s EDI Working Group and Executive Team.

Dr Laura Norton, Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at the IET, said: “We’re delighted to officially formalise our partnership with AFBE-UK and continue our work together – our affiliation is a celebration of the work we have already done to support Black and Ethnic Minority engineers, but there is always more we can do. It’s vital Black and Minoritised Ethnicities feel represented across the engineering and technology sectors and as an Institution, we can further learn from AFBE-UK and develop as an organisation to ensure we’re supporting our colleagues, members, volunteers and the wider engineering community.” 

Dr Nike Folayan MBE, co-founder and chairperson at AFBE-UK, said: “We are delighted to continue our work with the IET and to see how we can continue to together drive change for the future of engineering. Our joint outreach work through various initiatives, as well as the IET’s demonstrable support for underrepresented groups, is really important and commendable.” 

The IET is a world leading professional membership organisation aiming to inspire, inform and influence the global engineering and technology community, as well as wider society. It supports and develops engineers throughout all stages of their career, aims to influence industry to embed engineering excellence and professionalism into everything they do and works to inspire the next generation of engineers.

Ends

Notes to Editors

About the IET

  • We inspire, inform and influence the global engineering community to engineer a better world.
  • We are a diverse home for engineering and technology intelligence throughout the world. This breadth and depth means we are uniquely placed to help the sector progress society.
  • We want to build the profile of engineering and technology to change outdated perceptions and tackle the skills gap. This includes encouraging more women to become engineers and growing the number of engineering apprentices.
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IET Media enquiries

Sophie Lockyer
Senior Communications Executive
slockyer@theiet.org

Rebecca Gillick
External Communications Manager
rgillick@theiet.org