Written evidence submitted by Universities UK (DIV0023)

Executive summary

Universities UK’s submission to the inquiry focuses on the experiences of STEM researchers and academic staff working in universities. Postgraduate research students in universities are also considered in our response as they are crucial members of future R&D workforce in both academia and industry and, in many ways, their research career develops during this stage. As students, they take on research responsibilities and experience much of the same workplace environment and culture in universities as employed research staff.

Our key messages for this inquiry are as follows:

1. Demographic information about university staff and research students are monitored and are publicly available, allowing for accountability of individual institutions and the higher education sector as a whole.
2. There is no sector-wide system for monitoring or reporting on the socio-economic backgrounds of staff. Opportunities to systematically collect this data are important to understand the prevalence and impact of socio-economic differences on the careers of staff. Consistency in collection and monitoring is essential for understanding changes over time and the impact of interventions and external influence.
3. Across the protected characteristics there is inequality in how some groups are represented in more senior and leadership roles. Individuals who are part of multiple underrepresented groups can face unique or exacerbated challenges. It is necessary, therefore, to understand and challenge inequalities through an intersectional lens.
4. Change in the sector is being driven by bottom-up approaches to trialling interventions and sharing good practice, and in top-down support through co-regulation and funder-led interventions.
5. The Covid-19 pandemic has augmented and highlighted inequities in the research community, including those that were less visible in pre-pandemic times. As we rebuild from Covid, government, funders, and employers should use the research on Covid’s impact on individuals to identify and address existing issues rather than rebuilding the system with the original flaws.

About the available data:

• Demographic information about staff and students in the higher education sector is monitored. Aggregate data is publicly available by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) and further analysis on both staff and students is published annually by AdvanceHE. This submission draws upon data from the 2020 report, which is the latest publicly available data, for details of the 2021 report the inquiry coordinators are encouraged to contact AdvanceHE directly.[1] The AdvanceHE reports look at sector-level breakdowns across single and combinations of personal characteristics (further detailed in our responses).
• The same data are collected at the level of provider and at cost centre, which maps onto broad academic subject areas and professional services departments.[2] This data is mostly available to HESA users only, with only gender statistics for individual providers available publicly.[3]
• The data is based on self-disclosure and so underestimates where staff (and students) are not willing to disclose. For some topics such as transgender disclosure and sexual orientation, staff demographic data is limited, with 72% and 55% of staff refused or provided no information.[4] While data is an important tool in understanding the nature and scale of inequity, it is important that individuals should not feel pressured into disclosing more than they are comfortable doing. University human resources departments continue to work to ensure that staff and students feel confident in their ability to disclose information about protected characteristics with a clear understanding of how and when it may be used and not used.
• Data on staff socio-economic background and status are not collected by the sector statistics agency or otherwise centrally shared. These factors can have substantial impacts on the experiences and opportunities in many professional occupations.[5] How this data may be gathered is important for the sector to be able to understand how socio-economic factors affect recruitment, retention, and career development, and therefore what interventions and support should be employed.

1. The nature of extent to which women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are underrepresented in STEM in academia and industry

1. The higher education sector strives to provide positive opportunities for many underrepresented groups in STEM occupations. However, there is room for improvement, both in understanding and removing barriers to staff success.
2. As outlined above, AdvanceHE publishes an annual statistical report which use data from all universities.[6] The reports shine a light on the disparities in earnings, contract types, and senior representation across personal characteristics. This submission outlines just a few of the findings, but the inquiry coordinators are strongly recommended to explore the reports to understand the demographics of the university research workforce in more detail.
3. There are some differences between university staff working in STEM fields and those in non-STEM fields in how minority groups are represented. However, there is likely as much variation in subjects under the STEM-umbrella. For example, Black and Minority Ethnic (BAME) individuals make up around 29% of all staff in clinical medicine but only 12% across all science, technology, and engineering (SET) subjects. Equally, experiences and opportunities between groups often clustered under "BAME", for example, can differ greatly; for example, numbers of non-Chinese Asian academic staff greatly outweigh Black academic staff in SET disciplines.[7] Terms like “BAME” can be useful in high-level conversations, but they are often too insensitive to the variance in experiences between more specific groups and individuals. Research on the causes and experiences of underrepresented groups must be sensitive to these differences, so that interventions may be tailored to effectively respond to the unique challenges of groups and individuals.
4. UKRI published updated ethnicity data in 2021[8], including results from the 2019-20 financial year. It found that the data was broadly consistent with previous financial years and year-on-year changes were small. It also highlights disparities between different ethnic groups in funding data at several of UKRI’s councils, including in particular low numbers of Black researchers.
5. A 2019 Equality and Human Rights Commission report on racial harassment of staff does not contain STEM-specific findings but, overall, showed that over half of staff who had experienced racial harassment described incidents of being ignored or excluded because of their race, and nearly a third had experienced racist name-calling, insults and jokes. [9]
6. There are some features of the STEM workforce in universities that serve as positive examples. For example, there is a higher proportion of female researchers working in HE than in any other sector.[10] The sector is making improvements in representation with the proportion of academic staff in research roles from a BAME background increasing by one percentage point year on year since 2016/17. In 2019/20 18% of academic staff were from a BAME background.[11] However, inequities across the protected characteristics in both representation and inclusive experiences still exist in the university research workforce.
7. As outlined in the introduction, robust evidence on inequalities along socio-economic lines in staff is sparse. Academic research has identified cultural and emotional challenges faced by those identifying as working-class within the sector.[12]

2. The reasons why these groups are underrepresented

7.      The culture of the research environment is an important factor when it comes to representation and inclusivity. The UKRI Evidence review: Bullying and Harassment in Research and Innovation Environments provides evidence that institutional culture in the research workplace can be detrimental to promoting and delivering equity for staff. Universities can respond to this on an organisational level by taking action that includes reviewing workplace structures, control and reward systems so that institutional systems and processes are conducive (rather than detrimental) to supporting equity.

8.      The latest Culture, Employment and Development in Academic Research Survey (CEDARS)[13] found that although most researchers and wider academic staff felt that their institution was committed to equality and diversity, improvement is required on reporting of discrimination for underrepresented groups.

9.      Barriers to academic career progression in underrepresented groups remains a crucial area for improvement. Comparisons of representation across gender and ethnicity show that inequality increases along the traditional academic research pathways, i.e., from undergraduate student, through to professorship. An intersectional view of the data indicates that the relationship between protected characteristics on representation in senior leadership are exacerbated when combined; 66% of UK professors are white males, compared with 2.3% of those who are BAME females. This is a gap of 63.7% compared with 31.3% between the same groups in postgraduate research students.

10.  Early career researchers face significant pressure to deliver on high value research to work their way up the academic career ladder.[14] This has traditionally been synonymous to employers as having been published in "high impact" research journals. It is evident that those who are more advantaged in this environment are those with greater financial stability, no or fewer dependents, and have taken no parental or health-related leave.

11.  The pressure for academic research staff to continually secure external funding is present for university researchers at all levels of seniority, though it is most pronounced for early career researchers. Job security can often be dependent on external funding, but it is also often ingrained in university culture, as well as institutions financial uncertainty. Around 22.5% of academic staff aged 26-35 are on fixed-term contracts[15] and BAME academic staff are more likely to be on a fixed-term contract than their white counterparts, even among UK nationals.[16]

3. The implications of these groups being underrepresented in STEM roles in academia and industry

12. A lack of representation in STEM roles and at universities more widely, means that it is more challenging to create environments that contribute to improving a sense of belonging, and ensure that institutional culture and key decision-making are informed by contributions from a diversity of backgrounds, perspectives and experiences.

13. Diversity in leadership is crucial for challenging inequality in decision-making – including those around recruitment and retention - as well as expanding career opportunities for staff from all backgrounds.[17] The availability of programmes such as the AdvanceHE Diversifying Leadership programme can help empower staff from underrepresented groups to enter and succeed in leadership roles.[18] It is important that activities targeted at an individual level are also complemented by initiatives at an organisational level such as reviewing institutional structures and systems that drive cultural change across the institution, so that individuals are not solely responsible for overcoming the environmental barriers that can limit their success.

4. What has been done to address underrepresentation of particular groups in STEM roles

13. Addressing the participation and attainment gap for taught course students is an increasingly high priority area for university senior leaders, and the sector is taking important steps to implement good practice in supporting students, including those considering a career in academia.[19]
14. As part of the Athena SWAN Charter and Equality Charter programmes, good practice shared by institutions is collated within a database, which include searchable records to support recruitment and retention initiatives among other aspects of working in higher education.[20] Examples of effective initiatives for retention include active promotion of shared parental leave at the Institute of Cancer Research[21] and financial support for staff returning from extended leave to reduce its impact on their research at Newcastle University.[22]
15. In addition to the learning through practitioner-led initiatives, the HE sector incorporates commitment and accountability to tackling inequalities in its co-regulation processes. The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers is a framework that sets out obligations for research employers, funders, line managers, and researchers themselves to agree to principles and take action to improve the research environment.[23] While some principles in this concordat explicitly address EDI, others are more general in their aim to create positive and attractive research cultures but have indirect implications for inequity. Improving job security and accounting for personal circumstances and diverse careers are some examples of practices that can support recruitment and retention from underrepresented groups. Action plans produced by institutional and funder signatories motivate accountability among senior leaders. An overwhelming majority of UK universities are signatories as well as other research organisations and the concordat is regularly reviewed to account for emerging evidence and changes in the HE landscape.[24]
16. In 2020, UUK identified a series of recommendations to address racial harassment experienced by staff in universities. These focus on supporting the creation of a positive and inclusive environment. Specific recommendations include systemically collecting data on reports of incidents of racial harassment and to create centralised mechanisms for recording incidents to enable a university to have a true understanding of the nature and scale of this issue.[25]

17. Tackling existing inequalities for students is equally important to support more people into a career of academia and research. In 2021, UUK and the NUS published a progress review of it’s Closing the Gap report[26] which looks at progress that has been made to close UK universities’ ethnicity degree awarding gaps and what more must be done. Since the publication of the report, we are seeing many institutions take bold action to tackle racial inequalities, adopting strategies which take a whole institution approach to tackling these inequalities. The progress review found that the recommendations from the report still hold true today: leadership is key, institutions must embrace difficult and uncomfortable conversations about race, and institutional data needs to be used more effectively. More on the progress that universities have made and what still needs to be done can be found in this insights and analysis piece by Baroness Valerie Amos.
18. Alongside its publication of ethnicity data outlined in question 1, UKRI aims to address existing inequalities and foster lasting change in the UK’s research and innovation system. It provided an update on current actions in late 2021, which includes a range of a range of pilots, trials and interventions.[27]

5. What could and should be done by the UK Government, UK Research and Innovation, other funding bodies, industry and academia to address the issues identified.

18. In 2019, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) published two reports which synthesise findings on the effectiveness of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) interventions in research settings.[28] Many of the interventions tested were focused on career outcomes, including recruitment and promotion. The report provides detail that we would recommend the coordinators of this inquiry explore further. However, some of the reports' key findings - which were mostly limited to reducing gender-related inequalities - were that successful interventions often involve collaboration across and within organisations, have a commitment from senior management and align with organisational or sectoral strategies. The types of programmes that demonstrated success include training, national-level funding interventions, recognition schemes (such as the Athena SWAN Charter[29] for gender equality in higher education), leadership development programmes, and employer engagement and outreach projects.
19. The successful intervention in the UKRI evidence review outlined above apply to funder-led interventions. However, there are more research and piloting of interventions tailored to specific underrepresented groups and protected characteristics outside of gender.[30]
20. The Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers lists several calls for funders to act on their grant processes that can promote diversity through opportunities. Firstly, funding calls and conditions should be required to facilitate different working patterns and promote wellbeing and mental health. Additionally, incorporating support for professional development in grant costs can provide a meaningful way of ensuring researchers from diverse backgrounds are given the opportunity to achieve the skills for a research career in academia and beyond.
21. UK funders should also explore how better to incorporate into their grant terms requirements to demonstrate equality in research design, for example, ensuring study participants represent the population who will benefit. This approach can encourage diversifying research teams to bring in their perspectives and can incentivise overall better consideration of inclusivity issues in project leads. This practice is already common for some national funders such as those in Japan and South Africa as well as in the EU Horizon funding programmes, and so to not follow suit in the UK may be an obstruction for its participation in future global research.
22. The sector welcomes the importance being placed by major UK funders such as UKRI and the Wellcome Trust on tackling bullying and harassment in research workplaces. However, it is important that hard-line approaches that withhold or revoke funding for reported cases do not inadvertently negatively affect the ability of those who experience bullying and harassment from reporting it.
23. The employment statistics reflect an ongoing need to tackle inequalities that may be inadvertently embedded in university practices of recruitment, reward, and promotion. In understanding and addressing these issues, a system-level perspective must be applied. Through its work on mental health and racial harassment, UUK has demonstrated that whole-institution approaches are key to the long-term success of interventions for systemic challenges.[31] In the case of research, the co-ordination of change must reach even further. Funders and publishers play a substantial role in shaping the culture and perpetuating practice through incentives. We were pleased to see the UK government commit to working with funders to improve on challenges around research culture, including those related to EDI in their national R&D People and Culture Strategy.[32] It is crucial that the government use this as an opportunity to facilitate system-wide change coordinated across funders, employers, publishers, and researchers.
24. The Covid-19 pandemic has augmented and highlighted inequities in the research community, including those that were less visible in pre-pandemic times. For example, the burden for women to take responsibility for the majority of childcare became more apparent as professional childcare became unavailable. It is important that research into the effects of Covid are used as an opportunity for government, funders, and employers to identify and address existing issues rather than rebuilding the system with the original flaws. UKRI has produced guidance for applicants, students and award-holders impacted by the pandemic, to help mitigate some of the negative effects.[33]
25. There should be a commitment from funders and employers around recognising the direct and indirect, short- and long-term impact of Covid on researchers' CVs. While there has been extensive research on the short-term effects of lockdowns, more research on the long-term effects of the pandemic is needed. Any approach taken must adequately account for diversity of experiences and effects of the pandemic. UUK is also currently supporting UKRI with their Resume for Research and Innovation work, which aims to enable people to better demonstrate their contributions to research, teams, and wider society.

26. As individual researchers have been differently affected by Covid, it is important that funders and employers take the opportunity to support diverse team research, by incentivising collaborative and inclusive environments into research projects, that support mentoring and professional development, and that support non-traditional, impactful research and innovation activity. However, this approach to funding is also crucial for building meaningful international relationships and collaborative research projects, particularly if the UK is no longer eligible for the large and prestigious EU funding schemes.

January 2022