Written Evidence Submitted by The Open University

(DIV0036)

Summary

1. The Open University (OU) welcomes this opportunity to respond to the inquiry on Diversity in STEM.

2. STEM is a key priority for the OU in terms of teaching and research. The OU has 39,500 students studying STEM subjects at undergraduate and postgraduate level.[1]

3. The OU’s mission – to be open to people, places, methods and ideas – and operating model allows us to give educational opportunity to all with the flexibility for people to study STEM subjects who otherwise might not be able to do so. Equality, diversity and inclusion is also a key goal in the OU’s strategy.

4. One of the biggest issues driving a lack of representation for women, ethnic minorities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds in the STEM workforce is underrepresentation among those studying several STEM subjects, especially computing, engineering, maths and physics. This starts at school and continues into undergraduate and postgraduate study and beyond. The other key barrier is the lack of flexibility in many STEM job roles which can make it difficult for women with caring responsibilities and some with disabilities to do these jobs.

5. The OU is undertaking a range of actions as an employer to improve diversity of our STEM workforce, including as part of our action plan to advance gender equality linked to the Athena Swan initiative as well as through changes to our recruitment and human resources policies to address the barriers faced by underrepresented groups.

6. Our recommendations include:
• Flexible and distance learning can play an important role in improving the talent pipeline into STEM careers for underrepresented groups by allowing them to fit their studies around their other responsibilities and commitments.
• Government should directly fund campaigns and organisations that advance equality and inclusion in STEM.
• Funding agencies should consider making research funding periods more flexible to better facilitate maternity leave and related career breaks.
• Government and funding agencies should consider how it could better support female researchers to pick up their research when coming back from a career break.
• Government guidance and sharing of best practice is an effective and low-cost way of promoting diversity and equality. A stronger focus of guidance specifically on STEM would be helpful. 

Why are women, ethnic minorities, people with disabilities and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds underrepresented in STEM?

7. A major reason why women, ethnic minorities, people with disability and those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds are underrepresented in academia and industry in many STEM subjects and occupations is because there is an insufficient pipeline of individuals: the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon. If underrepresented groups are not introduced to and gain interest in STEM subjects at a young age, then there is not the pipeline of talent coming through to ensure academia and industry have a diverse workforce. While representation in education has been improving, it will take time for these improvements to feed through into significant changes in diversity of the STEM workforce.

8. The underrepresentation of women in STEM subjects begins in school and continues through undergraduate study and beyond. For example, even in 2021 females made up only 44% of A-level entries in STEM subjects, including only 14% in Computer Science, 23% in Physics and 39% in Maths.[2] While there is, overall, no underrepresentation in STEM subjects at undergraduate level thanks to the higher participation of women in higher education – 53% of undergraduate entrants to STEM courses are female – it is a significant issue in some subjects, especially Computing (18% female), Engineering and Technology (18% female) and Maths (37% female).[3] This underrepresentation in these subjects continues at postgraduate level.

Table 1 – Percentage of entrants to qualifications at different levels who are female (most recent year)[4]

9. Similarly, the high intensity of study for some STEM courses at university can make them less accessible to disabled students, some of which have to balance study around medical appointments, or periods of ill health where study is not possible. This leads to fewer disabled students enrolling on STEM courses, and therefore means fewer are qualified to work in STEM roles.

10. Another issue driving underrepresentation is that a large proportion of women working in STEM who take career breaks (for example, to care for young children) do not return to STEM careers and, if they do, often end up in lower-paid and lower-skilled jobs than the ones they left.

11. For example, a 2012 survey of people who had studied the OU’s Return to Science, Engineering and Technology module[5] five years after they completed the course found that female STEM graduates had mostly returned to STEM jobs but in different employment sectors and in particular into the health and education sectors. Many felt that these careers offered more flexibility but still enabled them to use their scientific skills and offered the possibility of working from home or part-time in order to combine working with family life. However, moving into these roles often involved the trade-off of taking lower paid and lower skilled jobs. Some went back into teaching roles within universities but on short term contracts with no job security.[6]

12. This illustrates the issue of many STEM roles often having insufficient flexibility to allow those with caring responsibilities to progress and/or maintain a work-life balance. The same might also be said for disabled staff in the STEM workforce who require more flexible working arrangements. Furthermore, when female academics take a career break, this tends to impact on their research. For example, a year out for maternity leave can disengage women from their research field and the struggle of balancing childcare and a return to research can be debilitating for their researcher identity and their ability to secure research funding.

What are the implications of these groups being underrepresented in STEM roles in academia and industry?

13. The underrepresentation of these groups in STEM roles is a missed opportunity. Different groups bring different insights, and the failure to encourage more people into STEM means that society has missed out on many individuals who have abilities and skills that could have contributed to advancements in science and technology.

14. Underrepresentation is also a vicious circle. Underrepresentation in STEM leads to a lack of role models who have diverse characteristics and a perception that STEM as largely male, and often white which perpetuates the mindset that a “career in science is not for someone like me” among students.

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

15. At the OU, we aim to create the conditions where students and staff are treated solely based on merit, ability, and potential. Some of the actions we have taken are highlighted below.

16. The OU’s action plan endorses the Vitae Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers.[7] The Concordat encourages institutions to ensure open, transparent and merit-based recruitment, and give due regard to the diversity of personal circumstances.

17. There is now a free Badged Open Course – Returning to STEM – available via the OU’s free to use Open Learn platform which has enabled hundreds of women to relaunch their careers.[8] An innovative partnership has combined this course with work placements and career counselling to maximise successful outcomes.[9]

18. Our recruitment processes set out from the start that we value diversity and we recognise that different people bring different perspectives, ideas, knowledge and culture, and that this difference brings great strength.

19. The OU now uses fewer criteria in job descriptions to encourage women to apply and offers interviews by video conference. Adverts are checked by a software which flags gendered language. Our recently approved Recruitment Diversity Strategy aims to increase the diversity of the candidate pool to address under-representation. We also ensure we have diverse recruitment panels.

20. Our efforts on recruitment are bearing positive results. In STEM, among academic and research staff, women are – in general – more successful than men in terms of being more likely to be shortlisted and – when shortlisted – more likely to be made a job offer. The proportion of applicants who are female tends, however, to fall with increasing seniority of advertised posts – roughly 35% of applicants to STEM roles at the OU are female.

21. In terms of retention, the OU seeks to promote an inclusive behaviour among staff that encourages retention. For example, the OU offers an enhanced maternity and adoption package for staff on permanent and fixed term contracts and, as part of the OU’s institutional Athena Swan[10], we have:
• Introduced an online Parental Leave and Childcare Benefits Portal providing links to all family-friendly policies and resources in response to staff feedback.
• Made available parental transition coaching for staff before and after parental leave.
• Implemented Breastfeeding Guidance.
• Established a ‘buddy’ scheme to advise and support women prior to maternity leave.

22. In 2020, the OU renewed its Bronze Athena Swan award and its new four-year action plan contains ambitious proposals to improve gender equality, including:
• Paid cover for academic maternity returners, allowing them to focus on their research or their chosen promotion pathway without administrative and teaching concerns.
• Positive action for recruitment of research-only roles, most of which are in our STEM Faculty, to address the gender imbalance.
• Improved guidance and training for line managers on areas such as maternity leave, the menopause, miscarriage and infertility. These key moments in employee lives can have an enormous impact on their retention and progression in the workforce.
• A commitment to job sharing, to allow those looking for more flexibility to progress to senior roles

23. This is having a positive impact. In our 2019 internal staff survey on how gender diversity impacts a sense of belonging and inclusion, 65% of female academics and researchers within STEM stated that the gender diversity of the department had had a positive impact on their sense of belonging.

24. Flexible and distance learning also plays a role in helping underrepresented groups into STEM. The talent pipeline needs to be addressed to resolve underrepresentation, and flexible and distance learning can achieve this. Many people with disabilities and women with caring responsibilities, would be unable to enrol in high intensity full-time STEM courses that allow them to take up STEM careers. Flexible and distance-learning allows them to balance study around other responsibilities and commitments such as childcare or hospital appointments. At the OU, for example, we have over 8,700 disabled students studying STEM subjects, and these students value the flexibility and personalised support the OU provides.

25. Our award-winning OpenSTEM Labs are also an attraction for our disabled students.[11] They challenge the traditional STEM pedagogical model of students and teachers being co-located in a lab during ‘office hours.’ They connect students to instrumentation, data and equipment for practical enquiries over the internet, where time and distance is no longer a barrier – any time, any place access.

Recommendation: Flexible and distance learning can play an important role in improving the talent pipeline into STEM careers for underrepresented groups by allowing them to fit their studies around their other responsibilities and commitments.

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?

26. At the OU, we can have difficulty recruiting candidates who have a diverse range of characteristics for certain positions and certain roles simply because there is a very small pool from which to select in certain disciplines. For example, numbers of women in computing and mathematics are low.

27. The underrepresentation of women in STEM careers – with women only accounting for 24% of the UK core-STEM workforce[12] – is sometimes not helped by the media’s representation of female scientists and engineers, which can impact on and inform the educational and career choices of girls. If we wish to see a more diverse and equitable STEM workforce, then we must foster a more positive, inclusive, and engaging way to raise awareness about STEM subjects and career opportunities from as early an age as possible.

28. One way in which the UK Government could help address these issues is by considering reintroducing direct funding for organisations which aim to advance gender equality an inclusion within the STEM workforce, such as the WISE campaign, to support them in influencing employers and in developing resources which employers can access without having to pay high fees.[13] For example, the Scottish Government funds an organisation in Scotland – Equate Scotland – whose mission is specifically to deliver diversity in STEM, and to support employers to achieve this through improved awareness about equality and diversity, strategies to improve recruitment retention and progression of women in their STEM careers.[14]
29. The Office for Students has also funded the Institute of Coding which has been a successful collaboration between industry and higher education.[15] This has had an emphasis on diversifying the IT and digital workforce – and has successfully shown that concerted efforts to embed diversity can work – nearly 50% of new online learners for Institute for Coding short courses are women. This has involved creating inclusive cultures within educational programmes, paying attention to curriculum content to make it more attractive to diverse learners, and linking to real employment opportunities not only in traditional IT companies but also in other sectors including creative industries.

30. Legislation introduced to enable flexible working – such as that introduced to as part of the UK Government’s Good Work Plan – although not aimed specifically at the STEM workforce, has had a significant impact on the ability of parents and carers to maintain and progress in their careers.[16] This is particularly important in the STEM workforce where traditionally there has been less part-time and flexible working.

31. Significant programmes of activity to promote equity and inclusion have been led by some of the major scientific professional bodies (such as Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society, Institute of Physics etc). These should be maintained and encouraged to continue. Similarly, employer associations such as TechUK, and trade unions such as Prospect, have led on sector specific diversity and inclusion initiatives which have enabled sharing of expertise, good practice and strategies.

Recommendation: Government should directly fund campaigns and organisations that advance equality and inclusion in STEM

32. More support should also be given to female researchers. When female researchers go on maternity leave, their research is often paused as there is little available support or resource to continue with it in their absence. Ultimately, this means that women are less likely to submit research and get promoted to higher levels within STEM faculties. Similarly, when coming back from maternity leave, many female researchers struggle to get the time bring their research work back to schedule. Many research grants are also time-limited, which can put many women off applying if they are considering having children or can lead to funding complications if they do apply. These issues can also lead to female academics not taking full maternity leave or deciding against having children.

33. Government initiatives, such as the Good Work Plan, should make a huge difference to some and more initiatives like this would be of great value.

34. With research being a metric-driven area – driven by publishing numbers and the amount of funding a researcher brings in – it makes it much harder for people who have taken any form of career break to get a promotion, even if their research is of a higher quality. This is often because women returning from career breaks find it more difficult to get their work to a place where it is REF-eligible.

35. The OU is piloting a fund that allows women to buy out teaching for six months after maternity leave, allowing a full return to research. This is in recognition that, in like many academic institutions, women disproportionately do more of the teaching, whilst men can solely focus on their research.

Recommendation: Funding agencies should consider making research funding periods more flexible to better facilitate maternity leave and related career breaks.

Recommendation: Government and funding agencies should consider how it could better support female researchers to pick up their research when coming back from a career break.

36. Job shares are increasingly seen as a method to allow women to progress to senior leadership roles. The OU believes that this is one way to address the leaky pipeline of women in senior roles and we have committed to improving how we offer and manage job shares as part of our latest Athena Swan action plan.

37. Governmental guidance documents provide vital impetus for universities to push through change. They give a framework and endorsement to important equality initiatives and, while costing relatively little for government to produce and disseminate, can really spearhead innovative thinking about how to promote diversity within organisations and STEM.

38. For example, the Positive Action Guide from the Government Equalities Office,[17] for example, has been a really valuable tool for the OU in trying to implement positive action on recruitment and, as previously mentioned, legislation being introduced as part of the Good Work Plan has provided a basis for the University to work with. Ultimately, we aim to do more for our staff, offering above and beyond what is mandated in the Good Work Plan, but a piece of legislation such as this is an important trigger to get these issues on the agenda.

Recommendation: Government guidance and sharing of best practice is an effective and low-cost way of promoting diversity and equality. A stronger focus of guidance specifically on STEM would be helpful.

About The Open University

39. The OU’s mission is to be open to people, places, methods and ideas. For most of our undergraduate qualifications there are no academic entry requirements. We believe students should have the opportunity to succeed irrespective of their previous experiences of education.

40. The OU is the largest university in the UK with more than 205,000 students, including 158,000 directly-registered students, and operates across all four nations. We teach more than four in ten part-time UK undergraduates (47%). There are OU students in every single local area in the UK – we are among the five biggest providers in nine out of ten Parliamentary constituencies in England – and tend to be stronger in higher education “cold spots” with limited face-to-face provision and/or low young HE participation rates.

41. The OU is a world leader in distance learning. Our undergraduates do not attend a campus; they live in their own homes throughout the UK.  Our students study flexibly and value the ability to fit their study around the demands of their home and work lives.

42. The OU’s curriculum is comprehensive. We provide courses across science and technology, arts and social sciences and business and law. We have specialist capabilities to teach science and technology using digital media and our award-winning OpenSTEM labs. We also have over 3,300 students on our apprenticeship programme at over 882 employers, making us one of the largest degree apprenticeship providers in England.

43. The OU works with a range of employers from the public and private sector and from SMEs to large multinationals to support their skills needs.  75 companies from the FTSE 100 have sponsored staff on OU courses in 2020/21.

44. The OU is crucial to social mobility –we are the largest provider of widening participation provision in England, and we are the 5th biggest provider for disadvantaged young people (those aged 21 and under from the lowest POLAR quintile). Nearly two thirds of OU students are from a Widening Participation background.

45. There is no typical OU student. In the UK, people of all ages and backgrounds study with us and for many reasons – to update their skills, get a qualification, boost their career, change direction, prove themselves or keep mentally active. 
• 70% of our directly-registered students work full or part-time
• 26% of our undergraduates live in disadvantaged areas.
• Over 36,000 disabled students studied with us in 2020/21.
• Three quarters of OU students begin their studies without holding the traditional entry qualifications demanded by most universities of three or more A-levels.
• The average age of OU undergraduates is 28.

(January 2022)