What could be preventing people who identify as part of a racial or ethnic minority, from applying to EPSO selection procedures? This was the question we asked ourselves when we decided to launch EPSO’s Focus Group project in April 2023. The project ran until October 2023, and it allowed EPSO to listened to over 30 people from under-represented racial and ethnic backgrounds about their views on EU Careers in general, and our selection procedures.

The lack of information regarding EU Careers and EPSO’s competitions was identified as the most common obstacle by participants across all groups. This was somehow surprising but also eye-opening. Surprising because EPSO has been investing in communication and outreach efforts for many years, including in targeted communication and outreach to European civil society organisations working in the field of equality, diversity, and inclusion. Despite that, we realised that many people from racial and ethnic minorities still do not know enough about EPSO’s efforts, or even about EPSO’s existence. From this we can conclude that there is still a lot of work for us to do in the future, and EPSO remains committed to doing so.

This project was part of EPSO’s Action Plan on Equality & Diversity 2022-2024. The choice of race and ethnicity resulted from the main findings of EPSO’s Diversity Pilot Survey (published in 2022).

You can read the full report on our website: EPSO_BlockingFactors_Brochure_WEB.pdf (europa.eu)

You can also learn more about EPSO’s work on Equality and Diversity on the dedicated page: Equal opportunities, Diversity and Inclusion | EU Careers (europa.eu)