(S2E10) The leaky pipeline. Who loses out?

Intro: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered podcast, where in every episode we explore what is research culture and what should it be? You'll hear thoughts and opinions from a range of contributors to help you change research culture into what you want it to be.

Tony: 00:00:24

Hi, I'm Tony Bromley and welcome to the Research Culture Uncovered Podcast.

ent Scholarship Conference of: 2022

Um, so hello, hello to you Rachel.

Rachel: 00:00:55

Hi, Tony. Thanks very much for having me

Tony: 00:00:57

That's okay. Um, and we were just having a, as we normally, as I normally do, we're having a little preamble, a little talk before we start the podcast. You mention, you mentioned barbershop singing, something to do with singing. Yes.

Rachel: 00:01:10

Yeah, that's right, Tony.

Yep. So a couple of years ago, in fact, just before the pandemic started, uh, I decided I wanted to do a bit more singing. I've got a kind of musical background, but I've never tried barbershop. So when I saw, uh, Steel City Voices, which is the name of my, um, Sheffield based all female barbershop choir, um, I decided to go for it.

And yes, it's been quite the experience. Sung, all sorts, um, from kind of versions of the Beatles, um, to Anastasia covers, um, and some more traditional kind of barber shop stuff as well. So yeah, that's what I do in some of my spare time.

Tony: 00:01:41

Excellent. And, and so can we look that up? Will it appear in Google if we Google it?

Rachel: 00:01:45

Absolutely.

Yeah. If you Google 'Steel City Voices' um, we'll absolutely come up.

Tony: 00:01:49

That's, uh, that is something I'm gonna look up when we, when we stop recording this podcast. Um, if, come. Let's come back to the, the, the topic of your presentation. Um, and also, actually, can we do a shout out to, uh, Kate, you weren't the only.

One who did the presentation, so if you just

wanna introduce you.

Rachel: 00:02:05

Absolutely. Yeah. My colleague Kate Jones, um, is not, not able to join me today, but, uh, absolutely be co-presented and it was, um, yeah, a really fun experience at the conference. So I'm sure she'd be glad to be here if she could be. But for me it's just, just me today flying solo.

Tony: 00:02:18

That's, that's absolutely fine. Um, So the, in terms of the title, you talk about the leaky pipeline now, um, it's a, it's a well used metaphor in the uk, but I wasn't sure if it's an international, uh, metaphor. So I just wonder if you could perhaps introduce a little bit more about what you mean by the leaky pipeline. Is it international? Vitae I know as an organization is international.

Rachel: 00:02:41

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting when you kind of posed this question, Tony, cause I was thinking about it and I think it's almost one of those phrases where it's been used so often that's perhaps relied on maybe too much to describe

sort of patterns of participation and engagement of certain groups within the academic system is how I would sort of broadly describe it. But I think maybe like all metaphors, it's, uh, imperfect and maybe a bit overused. Um, but it is used internationally, the term leaky pipeline. Um, and in fact, I think kind of the first use or one of the first uses was by Marcia Barinaga in the U.S.

And she was talking in the early nineties, um, about the kind of lack of women's participation and that was specifically in neuroscience sort of after the PhD stage. So that's where I kind of first came across the term. But I think it's, yeah, it's kind of useful to critique it a bit and I think that's what.

Kate and I did try and do a little bit in the presentation. I think most people would understand the leaky pipeline to be used in relation to gender and kind of low participation of women in different parts of higher education. Although it is used actually, interestingly in other sectors as well, um, to describe the lack of women in more senior roles, um, in sectors including like teaching and law and business.

Um, but yeah, I think we have tried to sort of offer a more critical view of the term. And while it might be, maybe, a kind of useful visual shorthand perhaps to understand the kind of lack of access and participation. It's maybe not the most useful metaphor in some ways, um, to describe kind of talent loss and uninclusive research culture because it, it puts the individual kind of on individual's sort of lack of ab ability to progress, um, in a way.

But we know that the reality is that there are like kind of structural inequalities that intersect, um, across identities and groups. Um, although I thought it was interesting, the leading routes report, which I'll probably refer back to later, um, in their recent report on, um, postgraduate researchers access to research council funding, they also drew on the idea of the pipeline in their title, although they did rightly refer to it as broken rather than leaking, which I think is a pretty accurate representation of the inequalities that they were talking about.

Tony: 00:04:44

Yeah, and well, I have an engineering background, so I identify with pipelines. It, it does, um, it's, it's been a useful metaphor, um, to, uh, express issues, but it, it suggests that you put one thing in one end, there's a pipeline and something else comes out the, the other end. But as you said, the critique of it, I think has been useful for us to analyze what we, what we mean by it.

Um, You've mentioned in the abstracting in your presentation, you've mentioned a number of reports, strategies relating to underrepresented um, groups. Um, I just wondered what the, what are these reports saying? How could you summarize about the barriers that there are to research progression for under represented groups.

Rachel: 00:05:24

Yeah, sure. Thanks Tony. And, and yeah, I think there are a range of recent and older reports which highlight kind of a range of inequalities and academic career progression from individuals, from a ari, a variety of underrepresented groups. I think in particular, like we know that the PhD's are really critical stage.

outes report they released in: 2019

Um, I actually heard, I heard was lucky enough hear Jason Arday speak at the UKCGE Mental Health Conference recently, and he said that there were so few of them funded. Um, these black, black PGRs that they actually made a WhatsApp group. Right, which was, was just Yeah. Staggering really, isn't it? Um, for

Tony: 00:06:24

it to be manageable.

Yes. It's a small

Rachel: 00:06:25

group. Yeah. Yeah. That's how small the numbers were. So although it does seem that there are some efforts, I think, across the sector being made to try and address that inequality to, to PGR degrees and, for example, the recent r fast funding rounds, um, that supporting universities to improve access and participation for black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups, um, in postgraduate research.

I think, um, you know, in terms of other research, we know that even if entry to PGR degrees is achieved, we know that there's evidence that individuals from different backgrounds don't all progress in the same way in academia and don't experience career progression in the same ways. You know, I think there's previous research that I've certainly looked at as part of my own doctoral research, which is around women's career progression in academia.

Um, and I looked at research that was done by both the Wellcome Trust and the Royal Society of Chemistry, um, that indicated that women are more likely than men to be put off an academic career during the doctorate. Um, and that's due to factors such as unequal access to networks, um, career mentors and appropriate advice.

Um, sort of how to get ahead, um, But also as, as well, like the lack of women role models, uh, particularly in STEM subjects, and also this perception of academic careers, maybe not as being as compatible with family life as other careers. Um, also for my own research, um, that I, like I say, I did this as a sort of doctorate, um, explored the career aspirations of women, PhD students from across different subject areas.

And I found the experiences of 'lad culture' that kind of embedded within higher education institutions, um, gendered expectations and discrimination, um, all contributed to feelings of kind of marginalization within the academic environment and made it quite difficult for women, PhD students to imagine belonging within academia in the kind of longer term, I suppose.

Yeah. Um, just to go, go back to other groups, um, sorry, I could talk about this all day properly. No, that's okay. Keep going, keep going. So we'll try not to go too much, but, um, yeah, I mean, absolutely know that getting a PhD is not like a guarantee of career progression. And certainly going back to the kind of experience of black, Asian, and minority ethnic

students and, and academics. You know, Kalwant Bhopal has written really, really interestingly about this in the kind of flight of black and minority ethnic scholars, um, leaving academia due to racial discrimination. Um, Nicola Rollick has, has done some really interesting work around the kind of intersection between black and minority ethnic individuals, progression and, and women. So she did a report a few years ago that looked at the experiences of black women professors and the kind of factors that had affected their career progression and racial discrimination, you know, is, is a huge factor that affected progression.

Um, But also, I mean, I'll talk more about this later, Tony. Um, we know that there's kind of ableism in the academic system that affects the career progression of disabled academics. Um, and, and that has all sorts of kind of impacts on, on how they're able to progress. And obviously I can talk a bit more about that later as I did at conference.

Tony: 00:09:17

Yeah. And it's interesting, our, our keynote speaker at, at the conference obviously touched on the well distinct lack of black female professors in the country. The statistics are in, in incredible and not in a positive, not in a positive way. Yeah. Um, does another CRAC/Vitae, you've done all sorts of work and, and clearly from your own, your own background as well.

Um, so you've mentioned a number of reports. I, I just wonder. The information that you have from Vitae/CRAC analysis and also HESA um, data, the higher Education Statistics Yeah Agency. Is there anything you could say more about that, sort of the, both the Vitae/CRAC reports that you have on the HESA data?

It's probably a big question, . Is there anything more you can say about that?

Rachel: 00:10:01

Yeah, sure. I mean, I guess. I'll specifically focus on the kind of, uh, report that we wrote for the Royal Society. Yes. Who commissioned us to do this work around, um, the career progression of disabled scientists. And that was back in 2019 now.

Um, and we wrote it up in: 2020

Uh, and that was from 2012/13, but also 2018/19. We did that work really to contextualize the qualitative findings of the work that we were doing and to investigate some of the kind of historical trends in more detail. Um, and so that analysis indicated that academics in STEM fields were less likely to report a disability than academics in other disciplines, which was interesting.

Um, we found that the disclosure of disabilities from academics was particularly low in certain subject areas. Um, for example, engineering medicine and some physical sciences. Um, and the idea of disclosure of disability is really interesting, I think, because there's a very different situation for academics and for students that are disabled.

Um, so students have quite a sort of, um, relatively straightforward procedure that they follow. They get access to many different things, including disabled students, allows, things like that. But the situation for staff is often a lot less clear cut. Um, and obviously until you disclose a disability, you are not entitled to reasonable adjustments.

And, you know, in order to obviously progress and have a, a good experience in, in your career, you do kind of need certain adjustments, um, and opportunities to be supported in that. So if you haven't disclosed, then obviously that's gonna be much more difficult. Um, so we found that rates of disability disclosure varied hugely across career stages.

From the analysis of user data that we did, there were much higher rates of disclosure by students and postgraduates compared with staff. Um, but also in terms of the types of conditions that were being disclosed, there was much more kind of disclosure of mental health conditions and cognitive and learning disabilities, um, amongst students than there was staff.

Um, particularly at senior staff level. There were very, very few examples where there were kind of disclosure of mental health conditions in particular, which was really interesting. There was almost complete absence of any disclosure of those conditions by those aged over 50 or those in professorial roles, which was really quite stark.

Um, it was also interesting looking at kind of early career staff, um, in comparison to their senior counterparts. So in that kind of really key early career stage for staff, disclosure was lower amongst those on research only contracts who we know, uh, are more likely to be on kind of short-term temporary contracts.

And obviously many of them will be, wanting to secure a permanent academic role in a very competitive environment. So, you know, that's, that's quite an interesting finding that they felt less able to kind of seek that support, but that in some way would they needed the support they needed

Tony: 00:13:06

would stop them getting the progression.

Rachel: 00:13:09

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and one of the kind of potential explanations for the low rates of disclosure in STEM is possibly cuz they've maybe taken themselves on a slightly different trajectory. So we've talked about kind of research only compared to teaching, teaching only. And we know that in research only position disclosure of disability is low.

Um, but those in teaching focus roles, it it, the disclosure was higher. So it, it is interesting to consider whether the higher proportions of those with the disability are either kind of choosing or maybe ending up on a teaching only route instead. Um, so yeah, some really interesting things that came out there.

But beyond the analysis of just HESA data, if I, if I may, I'll talk about the kind of more qualitative findings that we did from our interviews with disabled scientist. Absolutely. Yeah. I think what struck what struck me was really how they found that the competitive environment of academic STEM was just very difficult in terms of the sort of various underlying assumptions and expectations that it placed on them.

So this idea of, you know, being consistently very high level productive in terms of your research, um, constantly accruing external research. Um, the expectation, um, just as a default that you would be working full-time, um, and sort of the demands of being regularly present at, um, conferences and networking events.

And obviously this research was done before many things went online. Um, so yeah, there's probably some differences now and that, and you'd hope that maybe events and, and such like have got a bit more accessible. Um, but I think also there is a kind of tendency for people to want to go back to physical events and kind of that expectation is maybe coming back again.

But there was considerable evidence in the research we did that individuals perceived their disability to really have negatively impacted on their career aggression. Um, and that was compounded for individual in different situations. For example, mid-career female scientists who'd taken maternity leave and had care and responsibilities felt that they'd sort of had, you know, double, double, double the discrimination really.

Um, and, and anticipated that they'd been affected in, in many different, Um, because of that kind of complex life. What really was interesting to me as well, I think, was how early career researchers anticipated that the rest of their career would go. Um, I think they really struggled to envisage how they would embody this like, ideal career trajectory of being able to sustain, um, these long working hours and continuing to be highly mobile and securing these successful large, um, external grants.

Um, And, and also one of the main issues that emerged was also around the kind of low numbers that felt able to disclose a disability and to try and get support from their employer, the university to, you know, address some of these challenges. Um, and perceived barriers to disclosing disability was really, sadly.

Quite, quite significantly, mostly about, um, perceived stigma. So particularly that kind of fear of discrimination, particularly for those with mental health conditions, really came out of our interviews. Um, and interestingly, like the early career participants felt that it might become easier once their, a more senior career stage to disclose disability, but we can see that, that that actually doesn't hold true with what we found in the HESA data.

So it almost becomes, you know, progressively more difficult to, to disclose that once you get to a more senior role. Um, and other barriers to disclosure included kind of the lack of clarity as to who would own that information and what they would do with it. Um, and again, that kind of highlighted to me the real difference between how disabled staff are treated and how disabled students are treated.

Mm-hmm. . But of course, like not everyone was able to make that decision about whether to disclose, because some of the nature of individual dis disabilities were so visual or so physically, um, kind of challenging that they needed to disclose, they had to in order to get, you know, the basic adjustments that they needed.

Um, But what was really, really sad for me and the kind of shocking thing that really came out was that the majority of participants that we spoke to, particularly those at the mid and senior level of their career, so those that you'd assume, you know, have managed to get across, um, these barriers and have managed to succeed anyway, they wouldn't recommend other disabled scientists to disclose their disability because of the challenges and discrimination that they'd faced.

So, you know, to me that that's a really significant. Really significant finding because it just means that, you know, if things aren't getting better for those, that senior stage and they aren't giving up that advice to younger scientists, how, how will change happen?

Tony: 00:17:41

It's a really, um, it's, it's a really stark thing for research culture to, for, for, you know, having that, coming to that realization.

Um, I, I guess the people who are currently experiencing research culture are the ones, in a sense that set research culture for those who come up absolutely behind them. And it was interesting and I noticed somewhere that the disclosure at, um, sorry, postgraduate researchers are less likely dis to disclose than undergraduates as well.

There was a piece of work that I saw a while ago. Um, I just wanna try and, uh, bring things together. And we had the, in, in your title about who loses, who loses and who gains? Yeah. Um, so well I could pose your title back to you . So who, who, who is it that loses and who gains?

Rachel: 00:18:27

Yeah, I think that's a really good, really good question.

And actually we didn't have much time to explore this in a quite a quite short presentation at the conference. So it's useful to have the opportunity now, and I think ultimately I'd probably kind of start at quite a high level. Um, ultimately the UK as a whole needs to drive productivity through their research base, and that's been acknowledged within the government's

commitment to develop the research and innovation workforce, you know, that's been highlighted in their recent people and culture strategy. Um, and all of it kind of highlights the need to build sustainable research capacity and support innovation across sectors. And I think it is becoming kind of increasingly accepted that innovative research workforce will be best achieved through the inclusion of like lots of different perspectives and backgrounds and experiences. And that'll really kind of maximize creativity and innovation. So enhancing the participation of researchers from all backgrounds and across underrepresented groups is really key to achieving that.

So I think, you know, our research with disabled scientists highlights how the current scientific environment in the UK just doesn't do enough to support individuals to, to progress their careers and realize their potential. So we know that UK science drives improvements in our everyday lives and more,

more broadly, our economy will suffer if we fail to kind of plug the pipeline, to use the phrase that have already criticized . Yes. Or more speci. More specifically, if we fail to maximize our research talent and the UK capacity to produce research that has positive benefits to society in many ways. So I guess I was coming around to thinking about this and maybe speaking about it in less negative terms.

So rather than in, as in who loses, perhaps it's more helpful to see the ways in which fostering an inclusive research community is beneficial for everyone. Um, although arguably, perhaps not, for those who might more traditionally have succeeded in academic career progression. So perhaps that that's who loses.

Tony: 00:20:15

Yeah. I've seen, um, work where diversity in research groups has led to, um, well, better research is a, is a really broad term of putting it, but the diversity does seem to have a, a positive impact because you've got Yeah diverse, more likely to have the more diverse views, which impacts upon the research.

Rachel: 00:20:33

Yeah, absolutely.

Tony: 00:20:34

Um, I'm conscious of trying to bring things to a close. It's been fantastic to talk to you. There's so many subjects within what we've talked about. We could talk, at length from most of these things, but just as a final thing is, uh, perhaps one or two things that you think, uh, we could perhaps do at the individual level and perhaps even at the, you know, you, you talked right up to the governmental type level.

Is there a couple of things just to summarize that we could do. Do you think?

Rachel: 00:20:58

Yeah, absolutely. And I think there has to be more focused work to address the inequalities faced by certain groups in higher education. And I think the leading routes report really highlighted some of those. Um, you know, we're starting to see ring fence funding for black and minority ethnic students applying for PhD places, which I think should go some way to address the under representation of those groups.

Um, but I think certainly more, more effort on, on that front would be really, really good. Um, in terms of the work we did specifically around supporting disabled scientists to progress their careers. Uh, we made kind of a number of different recommendations at different levels for the sector, for key funders in, in that, um, area and for individual institutions as well.

And those really included the need for institutions and funders to provide really clear and comprehensive definitions of disability. Um, and, and that's actually, you know, not too difficult a thing to achieve. Um, particularly outlining the types of adjustments that could be made available for disabled applicants and stating those really, really overtly on job applications and funding applications as well as kind of staff webpages.

Um, and all of those types of things we found in our research helped individuals feel more able to disclose and access to the support they needed. So, you know, I think that's some really practical things that universities and funders could do, but sort of more broadly than that, I think you know, there has to be this kind of commitment and not just willingness, but proactivity amongst funders.

Um, and for the sector to demonstrate a more proactive approach to inclusivity and consider it introducing specific adjustments. For example, the time to apply for grants. So a lot of the kind of, um, research that we did found that the very short, tight deadlines for applying for external funding was just a real massive barrier for those with, for example, chronic conditions or mental health conditions.

So having a kind of rolling system of applications rather than like a firm fixed deadline once a year is something that could really help. , um, the inclusion of discreet funding for additional costs incurred by disabled scientists, for example, the need for a personal assistant or additional type of equipment.

Um, and that has to be outside of, you know, the actual scientific research funding that's, that's being, um, applied for. Um, obviously, you know, there are loads of different innovations that exist in terms of inclusive recruitment outside of academia. Um, so for example, um, offering applications in different formats.

It's a really obvious one. Um, providing room for contextualized TVs. Um, you know, there's some really practical things that funders could do to support, um, disabled scientists and just to be more inclusive.

Tony: 00:23:28

You know, there's so many great things that we've talked about. Um, but I thought what was is really good that you've raised a number of things that we can think about.

You've also given us this, uh, a good few things that we could actually do, which is really good to hear. Um, so I'm afraid we're, I'm out of time, so thank you very much for joining us. It's been really good to listen to. So thank you.

Rachel: 00:23:48

Oh, thanks very much for having me, Tony. Great to see you.

Intro: 00:23:54

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