Tech Skills and Diversity
Robert has championed diversity of thought and approach as the key to problem solving, especially in the technical and mathematical area. To achieve this he vigorously promoted the statutory diversity areas as first step to achieving different ways of thinking.
Gender
Robert has written widely on the need to encourage women to pursue engineering and cyber security careers. He launched the first Cyber security competition for girls schools in the UK in 2016 and girls-only summer schools on cyber skills.
LGBTQ
Robert publicly apologised for the Government's treatment of Alan Turing, at a time when homosexuality was still illegal. He apologised to other staff who had been dismissed and invited them back to visit GCHQ. He arranged for the building to be lit in rainbow colours on IDAHO day, a gesture which attracted wide media attention and had a measurable impact on perecptions of GCHQ among the young people.
Neuro Diversity
Robert believed that staff with dyslexia, aspergers syndrome, on the autistic spectrum, and neuro-diverse in a variety of other ways were key to GCHQ's success.
Ethnic Background
Robert campaigned to make GCHQ and other government departments more widely known in minority ethnic communities, which were historically under-represented.
Mental health
Robert strongly promoted mental health for staff while at GCHQ and has been committed to this throughout his career. He launched the highly successful GCHQ Puzzle Book in 2016 in aid of mental health charities. It became a bestseller and raised over £400,000 for charity.