An inquiry by MPs should lead to better data and policies on who wins research grants, says Rachel Oliver.
In late January, I stood, rather nervously, in front of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, explaining why we should review our current research funding systems to ensure that they provide a level playing field for everyone, particularly women and individual members of minority groups.
My journey to that committee room in the Palace of Westminster began when I spotted a tweet from the committee requesting evidence on the “balance and effectiveness of and innovation spending”. I immediately thought of the poor balance of research spending between male and female investigators.
I have long worried that strategic decisions regarding funding for UK science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine can easily have unintended negative consequences for the diversity, and so sustainability, of UK research.
On reading further, however, I realised that the scope of the committee’s inquiry into balance was limited to understanding the best split between the major funding streams and between disciplines. Nevertheless, social media makes it easy to send your opinions to the great and the good, and so I fired off a tweet of my own, asking whether the committee would welcome an evidence submission relating to balance in terms of diversity.
To my surprise, a civil servant responded. Our conversation eventually led to a group of amazing researchers in science, engineering and medicine from across the UK coming together to develop a joint pitch for #MyScienceInquiry, a process that allows members of the public to suggest inquiry topics to the committee.
Gathering pace
In total, 204 people from across the UK signed our submission proposing an inquiry into the impact of science funding policies on equality, diversity, inclusion and accessibility. They represented a huge range of disciplines, every career stage, and an incredible diversity in terms of gender, race, disability, sexuality and social class.
In the words of one signatory, Michael Sulu, a biochemical engineer at University College London: “How funding is awarded and who it is awarded to is a self-perpetuating cycle that is overwhelmingly dominated by a specific type of individual. An inquiry can highlight that, and lead to quantitative metrics (which people seem to love) that will be the driver for change within the academy and how it allocates research funding.”
We argued that the current lack of diversity in science weakens our disciplines and causes it to ignore a vast reservoir of talent and ideas. Research funding lies at the core of this lack of diversity, because almost every publication, conference talk or promotion application relies on having secured funding to support your research.
Hence, if members of underrepresented groups miss out on their fair share of funding, they are significantly disadvantaged in climbing the career ladder—a task that, for many minority scientists, is already made treacherous by the impact of bias, bullying and harassment in the workplace.
These latter issues have garnered much attention in the past year—and are currently the subject of a review by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) itself. But we felt that there is a need for a more focused investigation more likely to lead to concrete proposals for reform.
It is surprisingly difficult to identify what the problems are within the UK’s various funding streams. Public bodies such as UKRI publish data, but it is unfortunately quite limited, and tends to be aggregated in a way that hinders analysis.
Devil in the detail
For example, the UKRI data for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in 2016-17 suggests that the success rate for female grant applications is slightly higher than that for male applicants.
However, a freedom of information request by Michaela Kendall, a materials researcher at the University of Birmingham, revealed that in the 2016-17 period fewer than 7 per cent of all EPSRC research grants went to teams led by a woman principal investigator. It also found that grants to women were on average 40 per cent smaller than those going to men. Women make up about 20 per cent of the community of UK researchers in the disciplines concerned.
This highlights that the aggregated data published by UKRI do not tell the full story. Data on race and disability are even more limited, while data on sexual orientation, socioeconomic background or transgender status appear to be nonexistent. Admittedly, these data are harder to collect, partly because grant applicants may withhold information for fear of harming their chances.
Hence, our #MyScienceInquiry pitch called for a thorough examination of what data should be gathered and analysed to identify funding practices that damage diversity in science, engineering and medical research.
Tackling the problem
If a particular funding stream is found to be providing very little cash to minority scientists, we must explore why. Is there bias in the peer-review process that acts against certain groups, or are those groups not even applying for this particular scheme?
Where particular minority groups are absent from the applicant pool, it is vital to investigate the barriers they face in the application process.
Currently, these range from the main grant application systems being incompatible with screen readers—making it impossible for many visually impaired academics to access them independently—to schemes that require extensive international travel, which is impossible for many carers. In another article in Research Fortnight, Jessica Boland, a hearing-impaired scientist at the University of Manchester, describes some of the obstacles posed by the funding process.
As well as asking the committee to address questions of diversity data gathering, our pitch urged it to press for change where the evidence suggests that funding practices limit diversity. There is plenty of international best practice for recommendations to draw on.
For example, the Irish Research Council has introduced a gender-blinding policy in the review of grant applications. This has had a massive impact on the number of postdoctoral fellowships awarded to women, increasing the proportion of female awardees from 35 per cent in 2013 to 57 per cent in 2017.
The proportion of female applicants also increased, showing that where minority applicants perceive biases in decision-making it can, in and of itself, act as a barrier to application. A system that appears biased is simply off-putting to potential applicants.
A successful beginning
The committee gave me a friendly and supportive hearing. And on 27 February, the group that developed the #MyScienceInquiry pitch was overjoyed to hear that our passionate, rational and ultimately fair plea for equality, inclusion and accessibility in research funding will be taken forward to a full committee inquiry within the next 12 months.
Input into this inquiry is open to everyone. It is only the start of the process of rebalancing UK funding towards a robust and sustainable system. As a group, we are already starting to gather evidence from across the world about bias, barriers and best-practice solutions.
We hope that this inquiry will be the start of genuine change in UK research and innovation, breaking the status quo and opening up science for everyone.
Rachel Oliver is professor of materials science at the University of Cambridge
This article also appeared in Research Fortnight