University of Brighton lands funding for diversity drive in chemical sciences

The programme will seek to enhance the representation, progression, and retention of scientists from Black and minority ethnic backgrounds within the field. It follows a recent report by the RCS highlighting inequalities and a lack of diversity across the sector's academic community.

At University of Brighton, the drive will provide insights into how staff and students in chemistry understand the key themes of anti-racism, social justice, and equity as associated with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Leader of the project at University of Brighton and Fellow of the Royal Chemistry Society, Professor Bhavik Patel said: “This is an important programme of research that will develop new approaches that can provide a culture of belonging and allyship for ethnic minority chemistry students”.

Professor Bhavik Patel

Expected to be jointly run with two other UK institutions, Kingston University and Imperial College London, the programme will begin with a survey conducted among students across the three institutions. It will be followed by a focus group held at each institution to understand how these themes are currently approached, the possible impact of addressing these themes in a chemistry classroom, and how this could improve the sense of belonging for various communities.

Experts from University of Brighton will be part of an advisory group which will work for 12 months with a resource developer to create a framework to aid discussions around the key themes. They will inject real world issues of social justice, health and the environment into chemistry and its related areas.

In this way, creativity and problem-solving can be integrated into the students’ education allowing them to recognise their roles in a global context and depart from misconceptions surrounding careers in chemistry.

The findings from the project will be studied and implemented across the campuses of University of Brighton as well as those of Kingston University and Imperial College London. The collaborating institutions will convene a conference to share knowledge and best practices with delegates from other universities across the UK.

Additionally, the project team hopes the toolkits will also be published on the society's website to make them as accessible as possible to fellow academics.

The programme is to be funded under the Missing Elements Grants Scheme of the Royal Chemistry Society. The scheme welcomes funding applications from universities across the UK and Ireland towards addressing racial and ethnic inequalities in the broad field of chemistry. This programme to be delivered across the three universities over the next three years, is only one of 10 successful submissions to the scheme.