What works, and why, for diversity initiatives in business and on campus? To answer this question, and to scale up programmes across a wide range of institutions, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, its Coalition of Urban Serving Universities and the Association of American Medical Colleges have issued a report entitled Increasing Diversity in the Biomedical Research Workforce: Actions for Improving Evidence (see go.nature.com/2nhz7qn).

The report finds that a learning environment that has students from mixed backgrounds encourages students' exploration while reducing racial prejudice. Also, ethnically diverse authorships produce better science. As a physician and researcher, I have witnessed how inclusiveness in medical education translates into more-effective and -comprehensive research and care.

In some fields, only 4% of postdocs are from ethnic groups that are widely under-represented in education (see go.nature.com/2na5y5g). We need to gather more data on implicit bias and find out how best to attract and retain greater numbers of these students.

To that end, we urge more partners in government, industry, philanthropy and academia to test the available models and to research new options. University leaders can then direct resources to the best solutions.