Black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) scientists are almost half as likely to be awarded funding to research climate change, wildlife and other environmental science as their white peers.
Statistics published last year in response to a parliamentary inquiry had already exposed the inequality in the billions of pounds of annual research funding awarded in the UK each year. The issue has risen up the agenda recently in the wake of George Floyd鈥檚 death in the US and social media campaigns such as #blackintheivory and #ShutDownSTEM.
New 鈥� which was originally due to be published more than half a year ago 鈥� now breaks down funding by seven individual research councils. The figures shine a light on the vast differences between the agencies.
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The gap between successful funding applications is biggest at the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC). For 2018/19, 28 per cent of white principal investigators were awarded funds by NERC, versus 15 per cent for those that were BAME.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) was the only one of the seven research councils for which BAME researchers were more likely to be successful in their application for funding. The success rate for BAME principal investigators in 2018/19 was 41 per cent compared with 28 per cent if they were white.
But the agency also has the biggest gap between the amount of money that researchers are awarded depending on their ethnic background. While white researchers won 拢509,000 on average from the AHRC in 2018/19, BAME researchers received less than half that, 拢232,000 on average. Although the gap was particularly large that year, white researchers received more money on average for four of the five most recent years for which data is available.
The disparity was almost as bad at NERC. White applicants won 拢538,000 on average compared with 拢273,000 for their BAME peers, in 2018/19. In absolute terms, the funding gap was smallest at the Science and Technology Facilities Council, with white researchers winning 拢17,000 more on average over the same period.
Academics campaigning for equality in science funding were dismayed that there was no break down by individual ethnic groups, as they have been calling for, with UKRI instead putting everyone from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background together. Such aggregation can mask even worse disparities.
Tanvir Hussain at The Inclusion Group for Equity in Research in STEMM (TIGERS) says he welcomes the release of the data but is upset and disappointed by some of the trends it shows. 鈥淭here is no clear summary or an action plan at this stage,鈥� he says.
UK Research and Innovation, which also released figures on gender, age and disability yesterday, said that one positive sign was that the number of BAME researchers applying over the past five years had increased.
In a statement, Jennifer Rubin at UK Research and Innovation said the statistics 鈥渨ill inform our continuing work in this crucial area and we will build on this in the coming months through further data publication and by outlining our next steps鈥�.
鈥淲e are conducting in-depth analysis on differences in access to UKRI funding by ethnicity, and aim to publish this analysis in the near future,鈥� she said.
