About the Young Academy of Scotland

The Young Academy of Scotland (YAS)[1] was established by the Royal Society of Edinburgh [2] in 2011 to provide a platform for innovative young professionals from all areas of academia, business, third sector organisations and public life, to work together to address the most challenging issues facing society in Scotland and beyond.
The YAS mission is to help Scotland’s people and policy-makers build a future that is equal, enterprising, sustainable, healthier, smarter and international.

Topics

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

Advance HE publishes an annual equality statistical report [3] based on data collected by Higher Education Statistics Authority (HESA). In this report, academic subject areas are defined as SET (science, engineering and technology) or non-SET.[4] The 2021 report also highlights some intersectional data but this is not differentiated into SET and non-SET academics. The 2021 report highlights the following:

	Category
	SET academics	Non-SET academics
% of all academic staff	55.5%	44.5%
% disclosing a disability within category	4.1%	5.3%
% professors disclosing a disability within category	2.7%	4.1%
% senior managers disclosing a disability within category	2.8%	3.9%
% BAME within category	12.4%	9.8%
% BAME professors within category	10.7%	7.7%
% BAME senior managers	6.9%	5.1%
% female within category	43.2%	51.2%
% female professors within category	23.5%	34.6%
% female senior managers within category	28.1%	38.2%

Data on socioeconomic background of academic staff is not available but it is anticipated that the trend in the UK is similar to that seen in the US where a recent study reported that median childhood household income among University faculty is 23.7% higher than the general public.[5]
There is no systematic or consistent way in which the diversity of individuals in the industrial STEM workforce is captured, as highlighted by the Report on Equity in the STEM Workforce published by the APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM.[6]
There is a need for detailed intersectional analyses of SET data to understand where the greatest inequalities lie, as well as identifying good practice which can be amplified.

The reasons why these groups are underrepresented

YAS members cited the following reasons for lack of representation of diverse groups within the STEM workforce:

● Poor visibility – “you can’t be what you can’t see”.

● Barriers (real and/or perceived) that prevent access to opportunities.

● An imbalance in academic workloads. For example, it is often cited that more female academic staff engage in academic citizenship roles.[7],[8]

● Poor championing/nomination of individuals from diverse backgrounds for honours and awards.[9]

● Unconscious bias in the workplace in hiring and promotion practises.[10],[11]

● Barriers in accessing informal networking opportunities that take place outside of working hours – so called “boys club”.

● Loss of diverse talent because of the precarity of fixed-term contracts.

● Unaffordable childcare.

● Disproportionate balance of caring responsibilities which tend to fall on women.

● Under acknowledgement of the role of men as equal parents.

● Unrepresentative workplaces where members of the workplace feel they don’t fit in.

● Public sector equality duty (PSED) places a legal responsibility on public institutions to identify and eliminate inequalities in addition to advancing equality of opportunity. No such equivalent exists in the private sector. However, gender pay gap reporting is thought to have helped to improve women’s salaries [12] and so there is evidence that requiring private employers to report equality data can support change.

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

There are already numerous reports and evidence from a variety of organisations on the implications of underrepresentation including Tapping All our Talents [13] and Tapping All our Talents 2018 [14] to which YAS contributed. Based on lived experience, YAS members also cited the following implications:

● Loss in creativity and innovation if the whole of the available talent pool is not included.

● Loss of talent because of barriers and inequalities in the workplace that cause people to leave STEM industries. This affects the STEM pipeline and puts future STEM development at risk.

● Perpetuation of an unrepresentative landscape because diversity does not improve.

● A culture of inequality and perpetuation of hostile workplaces / work environments when diversity is not welcomed.

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

Equate Scotland [15] has played a leading role in Scotland in supporting women in STEM careers, supporting women to return to STEM careers, and in assisting employers to create inclusive workplaces. Equate Scotland also supports a network of STEM student champions in support of gender equality and inclusion within tertiary education.
Young Academy of Scotland is engaged in several projects to advance equality and inclusion. These include:

● Robertson Trust Mentoring Scheme. YAS has partnered with The Robertson Trust [16] to offer mentoring opportunities to Robertson Trust ‘Journey to Success‘ scholars.[17] YAS members are paired with the scholars, who are the first in their families to attend University, to help them prepare for graduation, develop their CV, and secure an internship. To date, YAS has provided mentors to 29 scholars including 15 studying STEM degrees.

● At-Risk Academic and Refugee (ARAR) YAS Membership Scheme.[18] Since 2016, YAS has welcomed applications from ARAR scholars and professionals to contribute to the work of YAS. Membership fees are waived and financial support is available to cover the costs of ARAR member participation. YAS has recruited 16 ARAR members to date. ARAR-specific activities have included a training workshop to help ARAR members (and external ARAR colleagues) prepare for applying for academic jobs in the UK.

● STEMM Bank of Scotland. This project is focused on the sustainability of STEMM education in Scotland. The project aim is to examine the STEMM education landscape in Scotland to identify gaps where there is a lack of diversity (e.g. teachers, pupils studying particular subjects) and to recommend and implement solutions to 1) Improve the diversity of STEMM educators; 2) Provide a resource of exciting and inspiring STEMM activities for educational use; and 3) Provide a database of diverse STEMM professionals who can provide expertise to assist in the teaching of STEMM subjects in Scottish schools.

● Women in Leadership. This project aims to examine the role of women in the workplace by 1) Capturing the lived experience of women (including YAS alumni) in leadership roles; 2) Assessing workplace culture to understand the role this plays in assigning value to the work of women; 3) Providing recommendations to create sustainable, inclusive workplaces where diversity in and of leadership is valued.

● Equality and Justice Tool Kit. This project aims to establish a set of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion principles for learned societies and membership organisations. Such organisations play an important role in STEM advocacy and can take a leading role in sharing good practice that advances equality and diversity.

● Tertiary Education Futures. YAS has partnered with RSE in this project [19] to examine the challenges in the delivery of tertiary education with a view to delivering insights, advice and recommendations to inform policy and practice around the future shape, delivery and funding of tertiary education in Scotland. This project will help to ensure that tertiary education is sustainable and inclusive in all areas including STEM to deliver the professionals needed to contribute solutions to enable Scotland to thrive.

● Responsible Debate. YAS has created a Charter for Responsible Debate [20],[21] to promote responsible public debate based on our belief that joint decision-making should be informed, respectful and inclusive. The charter makes a number of recommendations including: 1) Academics and policy makers should reflect more on the design of democratic participation, so that citizens’ main opportunities to contribute to public policy making are not limited to voting; and 2) Those managing and engaging in contentious debates should learn about and deploy strategies to address power imbalances within those debates (which are often subtle and unacknowledged), in order to ensure that debate doesn’t amplify and ossify structures of oppression. These approaches can be applied to discussions about Diversity in general as well as Diversity applied to STEM to ensure that diverse voices are heard in the debate. This will help to identify barriers to participation in STEM and allow honest and open debate.

● Invisible illness. This project will raise awareness of invisible/unseen illnesses and disabilities by partnering STEM and arts professionals in a crossover project to co-create narratives that connect scientific knowledge to societal challenges. The project aims to establish opportunities to explore transdisciplinary research and practises. This project has the potential to engage diverse audiences with debates about ableism which is known to keep disabled people out of STEM.[22] It will also provide a showcase of innovative ways in which STEM professionals can engage can raise awareness to help promote anti-ableism in STEM.

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.

There are numerous examples of interventions and initiatives to promote diversity and raise awareness of inequalities. These should continue but where UK Government, UKRI and other agencies should focus their efforts is in understanding how to effect meaningful culture change in both academia and STEM workplaces.
Several recommendations have been made recently in the Report on Equity in the STEM Workforce published by the APPG on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM [23] and YAS would like to reinforce and endorse these recommendations.
The Tapping All Our Talents 2018 report [24] also recommended activity in four key areas (leadership, data, behaviour change, education) and these should be applied and adapted to all dimensions of equality and diversity.
YAS wishes to reinforce these recommendations in the following ways:

● Leadership from UK and devolved Governments and agencies to drive culture change.

● The need for intersectional data to inform, enable and to allow evaluation of initiatives and interventions.

● A focus on behaviour change as inequality will not be addressed without it. In the way that PSED holds public institutions to account, ways in which the private sector can be held to account should be explored.

● Sustainable partnerships to deliver inclusive STEM education and training in all stages of education that inspires the STEM workforce of the future, but which also addresses the needs of those currently underrepresented in the STEM workforce to ensure they are retained.

YAS also recommends:

● UKRI proactively seeks feedback on its draft EDI strategy from underrepresented groups.

● Good practice is identified and disseminated from the Future Leader Fellows Development Network [25] which has embedded Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in all aspects of the FLF development journey.

● Equality Impact Assessments are undertaken and published for any new activity that arises from reviews currently being conducted in relation to the UK Research and Development Roadmap.

● Open and transparent reporting of the progress towards delivering UKRI’s R&D People and Culture Strategy.

(January 2022)