Diversity is an economic imperative

Labour has committed to building an "Innovation Nation", with 3% of GDP spent on R&D and the highest proportion of high skill jobs in the OECD. STEM jobs pay better – that’s one of the reasons for the gender pay gap – and with STEM jobs projected to be created at twice the rate of other jobs over the next five years, it is essential that they are open to everyone, and benefit from the talents of everyone.

But the statistics show that isn’t the case now. Here are just a few. Britain has the smallest proportion of female engineers in Europe at under 10%, BME men are 28% less likely to find STEM work than white men, and disabled STEM students are 57% less likely to go into postgraduate study than non-disabled students.

This matters. Diversity is not an optional add-on, it is an economic imperative. Without it, innovation is stifled and valuable talent is excluded from the workforce. That was true throughout my two-decade career as a professional telecommunications engineer. It is even truer now that technology has become such an everyday part of everyone’s lives. In a Labour Government, it’ll be my job to make that imperative a reality.

I can tell within 90 seconds of walking into a university science department whether staff take diversity seriously or simply as a tick box exercise. Unfortunately, despite the success of initiatives like Athena SWAN, too many in leadership positions still don’t show real leadership. Only 85 professors out of 20,000 in 2015 were black, while only a fifth were women.

More attention needs to be paid to the challenges faced by women and BAME scientists early on in their careers. Women students in STEM subjects report widespread bullying and harassment, which has a longer-term impact on their career intentions. For female chemistry PhD students, intention to pursue a research career drops by almost half between the first and third year, compared with only 2% for men. And the Campaign for Science and Engineering found earlier this year that only 46% of black engineering graduates are in full-time jobs within six months of leaving university, as opposed to 71% of white graduates – and this gap has increased in the last few years.

I won’t accept the excuse that schools aren’t producing enough good women and minority students – not when the university system is clearly failing so many. However, there are problems earlier on too. Black pupils are still less likely to take A-level physics than any other group while the number of women studying undergraduate degrees in engineering has remained at virtually the same level since I first came to Imperial to study electrical engineering in 1984. Working class pupils, meanwhile, are less likely to have specialist science teachers and will do up to 25% worse in science examinations as a consequence.

How do we change this? Initiatives such as Black History Month can help by showing the true diversity of our scientific heritage. Books and films – such as Hidden Figures, which did so well at the box office a couple of years ago – can inspire millions by telling untold stories. There are many fantastic groups from Let Toys Be Toys to the Association for BME Engineers who are working to overturn perceptions among young people that science is for the pale and male and privileged. And properly funding schools – as Labour will do by reversing Tory cuts and ending the wasteful free schools programme – will help give more young people a proper start in science, whilst our National Education Service will ensure access to science education for everyone from the cradle tothe grave.

But to make the science sector truly inclusive we need a comprehensive, sector-wide approach. That’s why the next Labour Government will introduce a Diversity Charter Challenge to ensure all companies and sectors take diversity seriously. This will involve tying diversity targets to salary and rewards, ensuring that diversity is embedded in everyday practice.

And it’s also why I have set up the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM with the support of the British Science Association. It has already attracted a huge amount of interest from parliamentarians, academics, businesses and concerned citizens. The APPG will help put diversity and inclusion in STEM high on the agenda, to move the sector in the right direction. This means all kinds of diversity – not only gender, but also race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, socio-economic status and age.

For a long time the science sector hasn’t recognised the true importance of diversity, but things are beginning to change. Last month’s award of a $3 million physics prize to Jocelyn Bell Burnell, overlooked for the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics in favour of her male colleagues, sparked a renewed interest in diversity from the media and wider science community. Let’s take this opportunity to make a truly diverse and inclusive science sector a reality.

This piece also appeared in the October issue of Voice magazine.