We have all joined this industry, in this great and diverse state of California, because we believe this to be true: Doing the right thing is good business. Our purpose is to enhance and save lives for all people around the world. This inspires us every day. To that end, we believe our leadership, our teams, our innovations, and our investments must reflect the diverse populations we are meant to serve.

The Racial & Social Equity commitment is our bold plan to commit to change, a unified effort to do more for the historically excluded Black, Indigenous and other People of Color (BIPOC) populations in California.

California Life Sciences presents our inaugural Inclusive Leadership Symposium

This February, CLS hosted our inaugural Inclusive Leadership Symposium this week—Leading the Change – Embracing Inclusion for Collective Success. More than 200 industry leaders gathered in San Francisco to foster profound transformations within their organizations through the lens of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Panelists discussed traits to being an inclusive leader, as the key to opening doors to generate new opportunities for people, historical health disparities within diverse communities and how health and health-adjacent organizations can play a role in advancing equity for underserved communities, the importance of influencing systems within organization and “doing the work”, as well as ways to debias processes that are barriers to success for diverse startups.

We were thrilled to see so much audience engagement, demonstrating the commitment and desire to create an inclusive environment for not only our teams but for our professional organizations as a whole.

     

See the Impact We Made in 2023

The interactive 2023 interim RSE summary report of our accomplishments to date highlights how we are reimaging our partner engagements, strengthening our programs, and establishing our brand as thought leaders in equity and inclusion, including:

  • Moving the needle towards greater equity in the life sciences
  • Improving BIPOC diversity in the C-Suite and on the board
  • Industry intelligence and resources, upcoming RSE events, and more

 

View Our Summary

Latest Racial and Social Equity Updates

RSE Uncategorized

California Life Sciences host our inaugural Inclusive Leadership Symposium

  February 29th, CLS hosted our inaugural Inclusive Leadership Symposium this week—Leading the Change – Embracing Inclusion for Collective Success....
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CLS celebrates continued partnership with NexGeneGirls

NexGeneGirls is a CLS Racial and Social Equity program that offers in-person research internships to female high school students from...
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Innovate for Impact: Empowering diversity in life sciences entrepreneurship

 CLS hosted an executive roundtable to explore our new resource for members: the Playbook for Accelerating and Incubating Diverse Life...
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California Life Sciences Participates in Health Equity Event with the California Legislative Black Caucus

In October 2023, California Life Sciences participated in an incredible health equity event with the California Legislative Black Caucus in...
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Inspiring future scientists at the 2023 Kits Cubed STEM Fair

For a third year, through its racial and social equity work, CLS has sponsored the Kits Cubed STEM Fair. Held...
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Supporting the next generation of STEM leaders at the NexGeneGirls Summer Celebration

We were so inspired at the NexGeneGirls Summer Celebration, where nearly 20 young scholars presented their research after completing summer internships with...
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Interested in Learning More?

Yamilex Peña
[email protected]

Our members who have committed to change:

Supported by Gilead who provided funding. Gilead has had no input into the content of the materials used at this meeting/conference.

ACTION. SUPPORT. INVESTMENT.

We are pleased to be working with the following BIPOC-led and/or focused organizations that are aligned with our mission, and who are making measurable impact in the communities we serve. We continue to expand our activities so we can broaden and deepen our impact.

RSE Career Connections Summit
California Black Health Network
California Community Colleges
California State University
City College of San Francisco
CLS Inspire QuickFire Challenge For Diverse Innovators
FAST MedTechColor
Health Career Connection
KitsCubed
NexGeneGirls
PRYSM INSTITUTE

Slone Partners
University of California, San Francisco

“We realize our plan is not perfect and most certainly not enough, we have to get started, to learn, and to continually evolve. For all that we get wrong or fall short, we implore our members, and everyone we are meant to serve, to join our dialogue and help us continue to improve so we can broaden and deepen our impact.”

Melinda Richter, Global Head of Johnson & Johnson Innovation, JLABS, and Emeritus, California Life Sciences