The Medical Research Council (MRC) is committed to funding the best quality medical research, which is relevant to and benefits the whole of society. Adherence to MRC policies will be considered by peer reviewers and MRC committee members when reviewing research proposals.
Diversity and inclusion in research design
Video credit: MRC
Video transcript and on-screen captions are available by watching on YouTube.
MRC policy on diversity and inclusion in research design
For research outputs to benefit everyone in society, research must include diverse groups within the study design. MRC requires the researchers we fund to embed diversity and inclusion into the design of any research involving humans (including samples and data) and animals (including cells and tissues).
This means that researchers designing studies involving human participants should consider participant characteristics, such as:
- sex
- gender
- age
- ethnicity
- socio-economic position
MRC is a signatory of the Statement of Intent on Integrating Older Age into Health and Care Research, reaffirming its commitment to inclusive, representative research practices. As part of this commitment, the inclusion of older people in research is recognised as a vital aspect of diversity and equity in study design.
See MRC’s policy on embedding diversity in research design.
Designing proposals, recruiting participants and conducting research
Diversity and inclusion should also be considered when developing public involvement and engagement (PIE) activities to support research.
Applications for MRC funding are expected to identify the characteristics of any groups in the population who should benefit from the research being proposed. You should describe how the approach that you have been taking to designing your study will promote inclusion of these groups.
Researchers are expected to record and report relevant information about the diversity characteristics of research participants even if these characteristics are not used in the analyses.
Research involving animals, and human and animal cells and tissues
MRC requires that females and males are used in experiments involving animals, and animal and human tissues or cells, by default. If conducting a single sex experiment, you must provide a strong justification and explain the appropriateness of this choice, including limitations of the study as a result.
See sex in experimental design.
Sex inclusive research: short explainers
MRC has developed a set of short explainers in collaboration with Dr Natasha Karp. They were created to help researchers make their research design sex-inclusive.
These short videos focus on pre-clinical research involving animals, cells and tissues, but are also relevant to clinical research.
Explainer topics include:
- the distinction between sex and gender and why this is important to research design
- how research design depends on whether the researcher is including sex to show the general applicability of the findings or explore sex differences
- the different biological mechanisms associated with sex and analysing sex-related variation in preclinical research
- the complexity of sex and its importance when communicating research findings
Additional resources
We have prepared a list of relevant community resources and toolkits.
Contact us about the new policy
Email: diversityinresearch@mrc.ukri.org
Last updated: 12 March 2026