Nature highlights reluctance to tackle sexual misconduct in labs

An editorial in the journal Nature has criticised the low priority that many institutions give to tackling sexual harassment in their science departments.

The editorial, published on 26 July, builds on remarks made at the International Conference on Women in Physics held in Birmingham earlier this month, where speakers said that a desire to protect the reputations of staff and institutions meant that misconduct was being allowed to continue.

A UK-wide survey aiming to understand the scale of the problem is being put together by the National Union of Students for publication in 2018. But universities should not wait for the results, Nature said, instead they should confront the problem head on.