This Pride Month, we restate our commitment to supporting the LGBTQ+ community and working to help shape research culture to be more equitable, diverse and inclusive.
Last modified on Sat 10 Apr 2021 13.37 EDT
The Nobel laureate poet Sir Derek Walcott once said that the English language is nobody’s special property: “It is the property of the imagination.” Much the same could be said for science. It should be said. Except this isn’t quite so. Not yet.
Data on who is doing science has recently been released by the Royal Society, the UK’s premier scientific academy, using figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, whose data is by far the most systematic
. The numbers show that in 2018-19, 19.2% of science, technology, engineering and maths academic staff aged 34 and under are Asian and 1.8% are black. In physics and chemistry, the proportion of black researchers stands at a sobering zero, rounded down, as these calculations do for ease of presentation, from literally one or two individuals. What’s interesting is that these small figures decrease further as a scientist’s age increases – as they travel through the hallowe
The scientist watching light at a millionth of a millionth of a second
Professor Rachel Oliver
When she’s not making atomic-scale changes to create super-efficient light bulbs and cut carbon emissions, Professor Rachel Oliver has her sights set on helping to level-up equality and diversity in science. We speak to her on International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February).
As a child I was always very curious about why the world was the way it was. Sometimes my mum had answers and sometimes she’d tell me just to shush and get on with things – I was probably asking questions at the least convenient moment.
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Just 10 senior researchers who received public funding in the UK during 2018-19 were Black, the first breakdown of UK science funding by individual ethnic groups reveals. The number, just 0.5 per cent of the total, was described as “profoundly upsetting” by the government body in charge of funding.
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Researchers can apply for three categories of funding, in descending seniority: principal investigator (PI), co-investigator or fellow. Today, data published by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), which coordinates the research councils, shows that just 10 Black researchers were awarded PI funding. Out of the total 2045 PI roles funded, 210 went to people from an ethnic minority.