Workplace discrimination among women and ethnic minorities is well documented. But what about experiences due to the intersection of both gender and race? How do these interact – over the lifecycle, at home, in schools and at work – to shape the careers of ethnic minority women? We explored how some of the most powerful ethnic minority women in the UK beat the odds.

Black boys and young black men are under-achieving in education and in the labour market. They are also over-represented in the Criminal Justice System. To tackle these issues, four government departments and a group of 25 third sector experts came together to create the REACH programme.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) had very little information on the health of the Chinese community in England. They needed insights into the health beliefs and practices of Chinese people in the UK both to steer the development of a national survey on the health and lifestyles of the Chinese community and to develop tailored public health programmes.

Why do some people expect to be discriminated against and others don’t? What drives their perceptions? More critically, do these expectations reflect reality or can they safely be ignored? These questions are answered in a game-changing piece of research based on 120 face-to-face interviews with black and Asian people.

For its Diversity Review, DEFRA needed to know why young people, disabled people and people from minority ethnic backgrounds are all less likely to visit and enjoy the countryside.

In a global and more affluent world, ethnic minority women – with their diverse skin care needs and skin tones – have become a powerful economic force. They expect that beauty brands will recognise and value their beauty, understand their lifestyles and cater for their skin care and beauty needs. Over many projects, we helped Estée Lauder reap the benefits of these trends.

Macmillan Cancer Support knew that people living with cancer who are from minority groups (either from Black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT), or aged 65 and over) tend to have poorer experiences and outcomes in cancer services. However, they lacked evidence and insight to identify specific needs and shape future support.

Store performance data revealed that some supermarkets in areas where there is a large ethnic minority population were not doing as well and others. Morrisons needed to understand the shopping behaviours of ethnic minority consumers to make sense of this evidence and rectify the problem.

Shakespeare and the theatre are true national treasures. They should be accessible to all. Yet the RSC could readily see that their audiences were far from representative. They needed a comprehensive, evidence-based strategy to attract more diverse people to their productions – now and in the future.