Communication about EIT Food activities should always aim to be inclusive and engaging for everyone interested in joining the EIT Food community. We want to ensure that we reinforce the culture of inclusivity and creativity through all our communications.  

See below a checklist to help you design your communications in an inclusive way.


Show diversity through your visuals

Using images and visuals of people from diverse backgrounds (for instance gender, country, age, etc.) ensures your content comes across as authentic and provides more people with the possibility to truly engage with it. 

  • Be aware of diverse populations and their intersecting identities. For instance, diverse youth populations, differently abled people, individuals from rural areas, age and other identities in your visual communication content.

  • Portray these individuals in various activities beyond those which are stereotypical. For example, when showing scientists in labs include women scientists, and when showing farmers include young people (not only people aged 50+). 

  • Avoid using stock photos if real photos, such as those of participants of the EIT Food programmes or other stakeholders, are available. If using stock photos, look for more realistic images that feature people with different backgrounds and abilities (race, body type, physical ability, age).

  • Avoid victimising differently abled people or vulnerable groups. Instead, portray individuals or groups in dignified ways as part of their daily routine.

Make your content accessible

When creating or updating your project page on the EIT Food website, videos or social media graphics, ensure they are useful and attractive to the people they are intended to engage. 


  • When developing website content, be inclusive of those who may access the website with digital assistance.

  • All video content should have options for captions to accommodate viewers whose first language is not English or who require visual or hearing assistance. Learn how to add subtitles to a video.
    It’s also good practice to provide a separate transcript in an accessible PDF for video and audio. 

  • Include written descriptions of all images, including those on social media, to help screen readers capture information. Read more about alt text. Some social media including Twitter or Instagram have generated ways to compose a description of the images, to make content more accessible, including for those with visual impairments. 

  • Writing in plain language makes it easier for more people to understand you.

  • Avoid using custom fonts, italics, and all caps in published texts, including those on social media. Unusual fonts are unintelligible to screen readers, not to mention can be hard for other people to understand as well.

  • Avoid typing in red or green as it is harder for people with colour-blindness to read as can be for those with no sight impediment. 

  • Capitalise the First Letter of Words in Hashtags. Use camel case - capitalising the first letter of each word in a hashtag. Camel case not only makes it a lot easier for screen readers to pronounce, it also makes it easier for people to scan. Find other tips for creating hashtags.

  • Make sure content has a high contrast as this helps people with poor vision. It will also helps people who are viewing your social media posts outside in bright natural light. There are online tools to check the contrast ration before publishing.

  • Let’s be mindful of when to use emojis. They are obviously a part of social media language, but there are some accessibility issues to be aware of. For example, excessive use can cause difficulties for people using screen readers who will hear the same descriptions repeatedly. 
    It is a good practice to put emoji at the end of a sentence rather than between the words. Check out more tips for using emojis.

Write inclusive stories

EIT Food believes in the importance of creating an inclusive food system. We can do this through power of inclusive storytelling. Ensure you craft your text to implicitly or explicitly reinforce the benefits of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 


  • Make sure your writing is free from language that is biased or may be perceived as biased. 

  • Use gender-neutral terms and ask individuals what pronouns they prefer. You can learn more about the gender inclusive language.

  • When referring to a person’s race or ethnicity, use adjectives, not nouns: for example, an Asian person, or a person of Asian descent, not an Asian.

  • Avoid terms which reduce the person to their ability or disability – use “individual with epilepsy” rather than “epileptic” or “person with lived experience of autism” rather than “autistic”.

  • Consider the language you use around disability and remove negativity that reinforces stigma/stereotypes: for example, “wheelchair-bound/confined to a wheelchair” should be “person who uses a wheelchair” and those living with cancer or dementia are not “sufferers/victims.”

  • In your narrative, don’t use stereotypes – whether positive or negative – that make a generalisation about members of a particular racial, ethnic or national group. These reinforce stereotypes and create division between groups.

  • Trigger content warnings are prominent pieces of content that warn viewers that the material is potentially upsetting. In our case, it is especially important when writing about diets, calories of food etc. 

  • Be mindful of microinequities. Microinequities are small behaviours or language nuances that exclude, or negatively impact a group of people based on an unchangeable characteristic, such as a person’s sex or ethnicity. An example of a microinequity would be referring to a woman as being ‘emotional’, with the intention of this being a negative comment. 

Work with diverse pool of designers

By creating  visual communications, we can promote diversity not only through portraying different cultures and groups, but also by collaborating with designers from different backgrounds.

  • When there is an opportunity to commission a creative work, seek illustrators, photographers, writers from underrepresented groups. This will enable you to create content that celebrates the diversity of the human experience authentically.  

  • Include diverse suppliers among the companies you are sending the RFPs to.

  • Include a clause about selection of diverse suppliers in the contract with events agency you cooperate with. 

 

To create content which is relatable, accurate, trustworthy and reliable it is always a good practice to double check visuals or text with a person who has direct experience with a described or portrayed situation or group. Whenever you can, ask (for instance) an older person, female scientist, person with ADHD or person from LGBTQ+ community their opinions on your content - whether they feel it is inclusive, and whether it makes them eager to dive deeper into what you are posting.



If you have any enquiries related to diversity and inclusion topics, please reach out to our Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Aleksandra Niżyńska: aleksandra.nizynska@eitfood.eu.



This article was last reviewed in February 2023 and will be reviewed again in September 2023.

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