Tag: Playing

  • How to level the PhD playing field

    How to level the PhD playing field

    To most undergraduate and postgraduate students, deciding to undertake a doctoral degree is not common.

    What is involved can be rather opaque – if not completely mysterious – with many potential applicants unaware of how to navigate the PhD journey.

    Unfortunately, there is evidence of underrepresentation for some groups at doctoral level. For example, 59 per cent of the undergraduate population identify as White, rising to 68 per cent of taught postgraduates and 74 per cent for research degrees as of 2022-23.

    This broken pipeline is demonstrated by just 1.2 per cent of the 19,868 studentships awarded by all UKRI research councils from 2016-17 – 2018-19 went to Black or Black Mixed students, with just 30 of those being from a Black Caribbean background.

    In addition, those from underrepresented groups have fewer role models in PhD study and in academia. For academic staff, HESA data for 2023-24 shows that just 3.4 per cent of all academic staff are Black, with data from 2022-23 showing that 1 per cent of all professors are Black (and just 31 per cent of professors are female).

    The value of personal contact

    One of the most effective ways to help potential applicants understand what is involved in a doctorate is a face-to-face event, where current doctoral researchers and supervisors can deliver presentations, answer questions and talk one-to-one with attendees. However, such in-person events can be challenging for many students including those with physical disabilities and may not be suitable for those who are neurodivergent. In addition, they can be costly in terms of travel, time not available for paid employment and/or requiring the expense of childcare. Last, but not least, the idea of attending such an event can simply be intimidating, especially to those who do not come from a middle-class background.

    Working with the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange, we surveyed over 200 PhD students about their application journey. Most gained understanding through personal contacts rather than formal events, with significant numbers regretting their lack of preparation for the intensity of doctoral study.

    Guided by these survey results and input from academics, support staff and students, we developed “Is a PhD Right for Me?”, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on FutureLearn as a readily available resource for potential PhD applicants coming from a wide range of backgrounds and circumstances. The MOOC format allows the students to engage with it at times that suit them best. We focused on information regarding preparation, funding, and commitment, but also factors which may cause a potential PhD student to pre-emptively talk themselves out of applying, such as personal circumstances like ethnicity, disability, gender, age, psychological wellbeing, and insecurities about intellectual fitness to engage in high level academic study. Through frank interviews and diverse representation, we show authentic experiences of doctoral study. The feedback we have received suggests that our approach is proving effective.

    Participants who have completed the whole course have told us that it has empowered them to make a better-informed decision about whether or not to proceed with a PhD application:

    I haven’t been in paid employment for many years due to ill health. I am very tenacious and adaptable, I am disabled so have to be. Yes, I feel ready for a PhD. This course has been really helpful thank you. I feel more confident on the application process and the time management aspects in particular.

    It has also changed how some potential applicants see more personal aspects of PhD study:

    This course overturned the stereotype I had. I learned that there could be PhD students who are easy-going and enjoy life and work and who are not serious all the time.

    Supervision

    The gatekeepers to PhD study are usually the staff who work in a supervisory capacity. In many institutions, the initial contact is made with a potential supervisor before a formal application is made. At such a stage there is no monitoring of the characteristics of the inquirer (not yet formally an applicant) so biases – conscious or otherwise – will not be apparent.

    Some barriers can be inadvertent: such as requiring a master’s for PhD study or requiring a publication. The former is expensive, especially for students carrying substantial financial burdens from undergraduate study and the latter can be harder for those with caring responsibilities or for those who are not already familiar with the focus on publication in academia.

    It is important that universities do not focus only on the application process but also ensure appropriate support during doctoral study for those from traditionally under-represented groups. In particular, universities can facilitate peer-support groups similar to existing examples such as the Blackett Lab Family, developed at Imperial from Mark Richards’ decision to take on two Black students as their academic and social mentor and now a national collective who share a passion for physics and positive representations of the Black community.

    While supervisor training exists, uptake is often low. Universities might instead integrate inclusion discussions into regular departmental activities, making these conversations harder to avoid.

    New deal

    If we are to truly level the playing field for PhD study, the sector needs coordinated action across multiple fronts. While UKRI’s New Deal for Postgraduate Research represents important progress, its reach extends to only 20% of UK doctoral researchers, leaving the majority of provision unmonitored and unregulated. The current system’s reliance on individual supervisors as informal gatekeepers perpetuates existing inequalities, often unconsciously.

    What is needed is a more systematic approach: a national framework that standardises PhD admission processes, monitors equity outcomes across all institutions, and mandates inclusive practices rather than leaving them to institutional discretion. This could include establishing minimum standards for supervisor training on unconscious bias, requiring transparent reporting of demographic data at inquiry and application stages, and creating pathways that do not penalise those without traditional academic capital.

    Universities must also recognise that widening participation cannot end at enrolment; it requires sustained support structures that acknowledge the different challenges faced by doctoral students from underrepresented backgrounds. The prize is significant: a more diverse doctoral cohort will not only address issues of fairness and representation but will ultimately strengthen the quality and relevance of research itself. The question is whether the sector has the collective will to move beyond well-intentioned initiatives toward the structural changes that genuine equity demands.

    Contributing authors from the Bloomsbury Learning Exchange: Tom Graham, Nancy Weitz, Sarah Sherman

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  • Chancellors Playing Footsie With Authoritarianism

    Chancellors Playing Footsie With Authoritarianism

    It is hard not to feel at least occasionally helpless these days trying to operate between the twinned pincers of a Trump administration steamrolling our democracy and an AI industry pursuing its goal of automating all means and matter of human expression.

    It seems like, combined, they can take away just about anything: our grants, our international students, our jobs, our freedom.

    Things get worse when those of us toiling away as laborers see those in positions of leadership at the institutions that should be bollards blocking the path of antihuman, antifreedom movements instead lying down so as to be more easily run over.

    (Looking at you, Columbia University.)

    Arguments about how we should consider some measure of accommodation (to fascism, to AI) abound, and some are even reasonable-sounding. These are powerful forces with their hands around the throat of our futures. Certainly no one can be blamed for doing what it takes to nudge those hands back a few millimeters so you can get enough air to breathe.

    Those with the power to do so can seemingly take just about anything they want, except for one thing: your dignity.

    Your dignity must be given away by an act of free will. Maybe I was naïve to think that more people would be protective of their dignity in these times, but I see so many instances of the opposite that I’m frequently stunned by the eagerness with which people are willing to hurl their dignity into the abyss for some perceived benefit.

    The worst examples are found in the members of Donald Trump’s cabinet, who are occasionally tasked with a public performance of sycophantic fealty to their dear leader. It is amazing to see accomplished people treat the president of the United States like a toddler in need of a level of affirmation that would make Stuart Smalley blush. I think I understand the motives of these people: They are wielding power at a level that allows them to literally remake society or even the world.

    If it is your life’s goal to shield chemical companies from the financial responsibility of cleaning up the “forever chemicals” that cause cancer and miscarriages—which The New York Times reports is the apparent mission of some monster named Steven Cook—maybe it’s worth it to slather Trump in praise.

    But the decision to jettison one’s dignity made by the New York Times writer who looked at these displays and decided they are an example of leadership via reality television host rather than aspiring authoritarian is tougher for me to figure. While the article correctly identifies some of the lies conveyed during the spectacle, the overall tone is more of a “can you believe he’s getting away with this shit?” approach, rather than a “shouldn’t we be concerned he’s getting away with this shit?” approach, which would be far more accurate to the occasion.

    I can believe he’s getting away with it when the paper of record continually covers Trump like a novel spectacle practicing unusual politics rather than an authoritarian.

    I don’t know how one maintains their dignity when writing a story about Trump deploying the United States military in the nation’s capital that gives any credence to a “crackdown on crime” given that this is transparently BS, and yet the Times reflexively characterizes what is happening as a “crackdown” (see here, here and here), rather than, I don’t know, an “occupation.”

    In other jettisoning of dignity for strategic gain news, I have been, to a degree, sympathetic to the pre–Trump II stance of Vanderbilt chancellor Daniel Diermeier and WashU chancellor Andrew D. Martin’s views of higher ed reform anchored in institutional neutrality.

    I disagreed with that view as a matter of principle and policy approach, but this is a debate over principles.

    Now that we find ourselves in the midst of the overt Trump II attempts to destroy the independence of higher education institutions, I found their answers to a series of questions from The Chronicle’s Megan Zahneis about an apparent dispute between them and Princeton president Christopher Eisgruber about higher ed’s stance in relationship to Trump astounding as a performance of willed ignorance.

    This debate is taking place at a time when, obviously, the Trump administration has taken aim at higher ed. Are either of you concerned about this debate weakening the sector’s sense of autonomy?

    Martin: I would say the fact there is a public debate about the future of American higher education has no relationship whatsoever to what actions that the administration is taking.

    So you don’t see debate between leaders as detracting from that autonomy?

    Diermeier: I’m not 100 percent sure what we do about that. We have a point of view. We’ve had the point of view for a long time. We’re going to continue to argue for a point of view, because we think it’s essential. Now, if people disagree with that, I think that’s their decision. That’s the nature of civil discourse. We think that it’s important to get this right. We don’t think that the alternative, to hide under the desk, is appropriate.

    These answers would make Hogan’s Heroes’ Sergeant Schultz proud: “I know nothing! I see nothing.”

    Earlier in the interview, both chancellors make it clear that they are seeing a benefit to their institutions in the current climate, potentially enrolling more students who have been turned off by the turbulence being visited on their elite university brethren of the Northeast.

    They have apparently decided that they now have an advantage in the competitive market of higher education by their willingness to wink at an authoritarian push.

    Speaking of their fellow institutional leaders, Diermeier says there that there has been “no despising or disrespect or hatred among the sets of colleagues we’ve been engaged with,” and while I’m not a colleague of these gentlemen, let me publicly register my strong disrespect for their performative cluelessness in the interview.

    Let me also suggest I can’t imagine someone who respects themselves following that path, and I’m grateful to the institutional leaders like Christopher Eisgruber who are willing to express reality.

    I don’t know what the future holds. It’s possible that WashU and Vanderbilt are positioning themselves as the favored elite institutions of the authoritarian regime, ready to hoover up that federal cash that Trump is threatening to withhold from the schools that will not bend to his will.

    I’m genuinely curious if that scenario is worth one’s dignity.

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