Katharine Elizabeth Hubbard

Scientific research is more innovative and impactful when scientists are drawn from diverse backgrounds. However, the scientific community does not reflect the demographics of wider society. Global Majority communities remain underrepresented within science, particularly within senior leadership roles. Here we explore ethnic diversity within UK academic biosciences, using publicly available staff and student demographic data from the UK Higher Education Statistics Authority. We use the Simpson index as a quantitative measure of diversity within the biosciences and construct linear mixed effect models to identify significant predictors of both student and staff ethnic diversity. For staff, there were significant negative effects on diversity for those in teaching-only roles, and lower diversity amongst higher paid and professorial or senior management staff. For students there are significant negative effects on diversity for part-time students and for postgraduate research students, with PhD students significantly less diverse than undergraduates. There was also considerable variation in diversity by biology subdiscipline, with higher ethnic diversity amongst biomedical sciences and biomolecular subdisciplines, while very low ethnic diversity was found within zoology, plant science and ecology. A correlation was found between the ethnic diversity of bioscience subdisciplines and the diversity of institutions offering those subdisciplines. Based on these findings, we provide evidence-based recommendations for action at various levels, including teaching teams, research groups, bioscience departments and professional bodies. We call upon the sector to take decisive steps to enhance outcomes and experiences for Global Majority staff and students, ultimately diversifying the academic pipeline to the direct benefit of UK bioscience.

Practical work is expensive, complicated to organise and often exclusionary. However, practicals are commonly considered a core component of research-based bioscience education. This is difficult to justify when the majority of bioscience students will not go into bioscience research. We therefore need to have a robust rationale for including practical work in bioscience curricula, and to maximise the value of all practicals for all students whether in the laboratory, field or computational space. In this opinion article, we propose a competence-based education model for bioscience practical work, seeing competence as the ability to integrate skills, knowledge, attitudes and connections between practical learning and the wider world. We argue that using a competence model allows us to focus on the true value of practical work, and therefore to design more inclusive and authentic learning experiences. We encourage bioscience educators to rigorously question the purpose of practicals in their programmes, and whether they can maximise their educational value through more deliberate competence-driven curriculum design.

Societal Impact Statement: Plants provide oxygen, food, shelter, medicines and environmental services, without which human society could not exist. Tackling pressing and global challenges requires well‐trained plant scientists and plant‐aware individuals. This manifesto provides a practical evidence‐based vision to strengthen plant science education, focused on five strategic priorities. It is relevant to all stakeholders within plant science and beyond: from frontline educators to institutional leaders; from commercial or charitable professionals to entrepreneurs and donors; from individual community members to their legislative representatives. Strengthening plant science education demands concrete actions from all stakeholders, ultimately to the benefit of us all. Summary: Plant science education needs urgent attention. Skilled plant scientists are needed to address major environmental and societal challenges, and global communities require plant‐aware professionals to drive impactful policy, research and environmental stewardship. This manifesto was collaboratively generated by a community of educators who gathered to reflect on the state of plant science education. The forward‐facing document provides a clear strategy for plant science education, complementing existing research strategies. Five themes were identified as essential for meeting the evolving needs of plant science, educators and learners: (i) plants must be at the centre of an education that addresses global challenges and societal values; (ii) plant science education must prepare students for their futures using bold and effective pedagogies; (iii) equity, diversity and inclusion must be robustly embedded in educational practices; (iv) local and strategic partnerships (with industry and beyond) are required to strengthen academic education; and (v) plant science educators need resources and opportunities to develop and connect. The manifesto is intended as a framework for change. Educators, funders, publishers, industry representatives, policymakers and all other members of our communities must commit to sustained investment in plant science education. By proactively and collectively embracing the recommendations provided, the sector has an opportunity to cultivate a new generation equipped with the knowledge, skills and passion to unlock the full potential of photosynthetic organisms.

This chapter focuses on a case study of evaluating community and belonging within the specific context of an institution-wide foundation year programme at a mid-sized UK university. We undertake a structured reflection exercise based on an Inclusive Higher Education Framework (IHEF) to evaluate practices for organic and formal opportunities for belonging, and identify strengths and areas for development. A structured reflection approach can highlight good practices and areas of development, both of which can be useful for qualitative evaluation. This exercise is to demonstrate the importance of reflective conversations and the benefits of using a structured framework when evaluating belonging in Higher Education. The purpose of this chapter is to help make the process more accessible for the reader to apply this in their own context when reflecting on belonging and community within their programme.

Inequity in Higher Education is under increasing levels of scrutiny. Most universities have poorer outcomes for students from multiple historically marginalised groups defined by ethnicity, age, disability or gender. Here we explore data for two undergraduate outcomes embedded in the UK HE policy landscape; continuation into the second year of study and final degree class awarded. We adopt a natural experiment approach, using publicly available sector level data for 163 UK HE providers representing continuation outcomes for 1,823,820 students and 1,591,540 students for awarding. We construct linear models to determine the role of institutional factors and the Covid-19 pandemic on outcome gaps based on gender, disability, age and ethnicity. We identify significant differences in outcome gaps based on institution type which has been underappreciated. There was a significant impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on awarding gaps by disability and ethnicity but not gender or mature student status. For gender and disability there was no relationship between continuation and awarding, but for age and Asian students there are significant institution level correlations between continuation and awarding gaps, indicating these gaps might be driven by common underlying factors. Our findings highlight the importance of considering both individual and institutional factors contributing to inequity. This large scale analysis of student outcome data identifies new directions for research, and may inform the design of sector and institution level interventions to address inequity.

Society and education are inherently ableist. Here, we explore antiableist approaches to bioscience education in an essay coauthored by a disabled student and able-bodied faculty member. We explore the relationship between eugenics and bioscience education and propose a “disability-competent bioscience curriculum” for all students.

We describe a two week Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) to introduce students to next-generation DNA sequencing, molecular biology methods and a bioinformatic workflow. The CURE is designed to take students with little to no technical and bioinformatic experience through key steps of the protocol through scaffolded laboratory and computational practicals. Our students extract and amplify human microbiome DNA using 16S ribosomal RNA specific primers, then construct a sequencing library for Oxford Nanopore based sequencing. They taxonomically assign the sequencing reads, and determine the ecological community composition using relevant software packages. Our students were able to successfully prepare sequencing libraries and analyse the data to produce relevant figures, demonstrating they met the learning objectives of the CURE. Students identified that they had developed higher level learning as defined by Bloom’s taxonomy, and that their confidence in practical work significantly increased as a result of doing the CURE. We share recommendations for implementation of the CURE in undergraduate curricula, and adaptations of the methods for use in schools outreach. Our CURE successfully provides training for students in genetic analysis in an enjoyable and relatively time and cost efficient manner, preparing them for future research or careers in modern molecular biology techniques.