There is increasing awareness of the lack of diversity in UK science careers, with data showing inequalities by ethnicity, by socio-economic background, and for different regions of the UK.
At the Crick, we’re committed to increasing diversity within our own programmes, and to supporting progress in this area across the UK research community.
Inequalities in research careers are particularly obvious at the undergraduate to postgraduate stage, so we are making some changes to one of our undergraduate programmes.
For the past five years, we’ve welcomed around 20 undergraduate students to our labs and facilities for nine weeks every summer to experience life as researchers.
This year, we are focusing our summer student training programme on excellent students who might be less likely to have access to practical research experience because of financial or social barriers, not because of a lack of academic potential.
By diversifying the pool of students who have access to research experience as undergraduates, we hope to diversify the group of people pursuing PhDs and other scientific careers in the future.
We are adding three eligibility criteria. To be eligible in 2023, students must be:
These criteria were chosen because they target inequalities we have identified in our programme. They do not account for every group that is under-represented in science, but rather groups with significant disparity between the UK undergraduate population and the Crick summer student training programme to date.
We hope that these changes will give a broader pool of undergraduates access to our training programme, and help them to make informed decisions about their future careers.
The programme will also provide a valuable experience to our postdocs, who will train and supervise the students. We’ll share updates on our progress later this year.
Principal Group Leader & Associate Research Director
Inclusion Manager
