Missing Elements
In a world where global challenges and advances in technology bring both uncertainty and new possibilities, the chemical sciences have a critical role to play. But what will that role be? How can we maximise the impact we make across academia, industry, government and education? And what actions should we take to create a stronger, more vibrant culture for research that helps enable new discoveries?Our perspectives series addresses these questions through four lenses: talent, discovery, sustainability and science culture. Drawing together insights and sharp opinion, our goal is to increase understanding and inform debate – putting the chemical sciences at the heart of the big issues the world is facing.
Science Culture*
The Wider Context
Missing Elements Project
Science Cultures
Scientific research and innovation is becoming increasingly multidisciplinary and collaborative. How do we create the open, inclusive, dynamic environments that will allow scientists to thrive and make their maximum contribution to global prosperity?
And how should we recognise and incentivise the breadth of skills and diversity of people, contributions and achievements that enable new discoveries and breakthroughs?
Sustainability
Our planet faces critical challenges – from plastics polluting the oceans, to the urgent need to find more sustainable resources. But where will new solutions come from?
How can we achieve global collaboration to address the big issues? And where can the chemical sciences deliver the biggest impacts?
Talent
Talent is the lifeblood of the chemical sciences. But how do we inspire, nurture, promote and protect it? Where will we find the chemical scientists of the future?
And what action is required to ensure we give everyone the greatest opportunity to make a
positive difference?
Discovery
Chemistry is core to advances across every facet of human life. But where do the greatest opportunities lie? How will technology and the digital era shape the science we create?
And what steps should we take to ensure that curiosity-driven research continues to unlock new opportunities in unexpected ways?
In a world where global challenges and advances in technology bring both uncertainty and new possibilities, the chemical sciences have a critical role to play. But what will that role be? How can we maximise the impact we make across academia, industry, government and education? And what actions should we take to create a stronger, more vibrant culture for research that helps enable new discoveries?
Our perspectives series addresses these questions through four lenses: talent, discovery, sustainability and science culture. Drawing together insights and sharp opinion, our goal is to increase understanding and inform debate – putting the chemical sciences at the heart of the big issues the world is facing.
Six Key Themes
Attraction, Inspiration and Progression
- This includes a lack of relatable role models, limited careers guidance and support, the impact of familial and cultural influences, and short-term approaches to outreach.
Mentorship, sponsorship and Support
- This includes limited access to advice and opportunities, the impact of homophily (the tendency for people to form connections with people similar to themselves), and the need for a more consistent, institution-wide approach to support.
The culture of chemistry
- This includes implicit and explicit racism and exclusion as well as the wider challenges of a chemical science culture that is often competitive, hierarchical and inflexible.
Funding systems and structural barriers
- This includes a lack of equal access to research experience at earlier stages and, later, unequal access to funding, as well as narrow definitions of success that penalise people who take less traditional paths.
Global community
- This includes the need for increased diversity of thought and innovation by strengthening collaboration and recognition of the talent in the Global South, ensuring a flourishing chemical sciences discipline.
Leadership in the community, accountability and allyship
- This includes the need for stronger and faster institutional and sector-wide leadership and accountability, as well as for all individuals, particularly those who are White, to act as allies.
Wider Context
HESA reports that, for professors of known ethnicity across all subjects, only 0.8% identify as Black (compared to 3.0% of the UK population), while 7.5% identify as Asian (compared to 6.9% of the UK population), and 88.5% as White (compared to 87.2% of the UK population)2,3. Of the 540 academic managers, directors or senior officials at UK universities, 0% identify as Black* and less than 5% identify as Asian, mixed or other.
“Racial and ethnic inequalities are particularly acute at senior levels in academia.”
Funding is essential for success in an academic career. Yet in the UK Principal Investigators (PIs) from minoritised ethnicities are less likely to win a bid for research funding than their White peers. According to figures from UKRI for the financial year 2019/20, the award rate for minority ethnic PIs is 25% compared to 32% for White PIs – a difference of seven percentage points. Those who succeed also get less funding. The median award for minoritised ethnic PIs £320,000 vs £355,000 for White PIs – 10% less.5 In addition, UKRI reports that 12% of PIs awarded funding are from minoritised ethnicities. Less than 1% identify as Black, compared to the 2% HESA estimate of the proportion of the academic workforce that identifies as Black, as well as the 3% proportion of Black people employed in the UK workforce more broadly
“Academics from minoritised ethnic backgrounds find it more difficult to secure research funding.”
The Royal Society reports that across science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects as a whole, there is no significant attrition of Black students from undergraduate to postgraduate level, accounting for the time lag for progression through undergraduate studies. Of all STEM first degree entrants in 2015/16, 7.6% identified as Black, similar to the 7.1% of postgraduate entrants in STEM subjects that identified as Black in 2018/19.23 However, significant attrition occurs from postgraduate level to academic employment, leading to an underrepresentation of Black scientists and engineers in academic careers. In 2018/19 just 1.7% of STEM academic staff identified as Black, while 13.2% identified as Asian (compared to 6.9% of the UK population) and 2.1% identified as mixed (compared to 2% of the UK population).