STEM PhDs ‘inaccessible’ to disadvantaged students

Less than a fifth of students undertaking STEM PhDs are from low socio-economic backgrounds, a report has found, resulting in disadvantaged students “being lost from the pipeline”.

The research, led by the Martingale Foundation with the consultancy Public First, tracked 400,000 UK-domiciled STEM students through the university system, in the largest study to date examining the UK’s STEM postgraduate landscape. 

The report says that while more than £800 million is spent on attracting non-traditional students into undergraduate study, “efforts to widen participation in higher education meet a cliff-edge” at postgraduate level, where “access to postgraduate study has historically received far less attention”. 

Students from low socio-economic backgrounds are deterred by high costs, with the adequacy of the postgraduate loan having come under scrutiny in recent years. Other offputting factors include impostor syndrome and a “‘hidden curriculum’ facing students without a wide academic network and with little familial experience of higher education”, the report says. 

At undergraduate level, students from the richest socio-economic backgrounds make up 56.5 per cent of students on STEM courses, while those from the poorest comprise 23.8 per cent. But that gap widens further at master’s and PhD levels, with students from the richest backgrounds accounting for almost two-thirds of students at doctoral level – 65.6 per cent – compared with only 17.8 per cent from the poorest backgrounds.

In non-STEM subjects, the gap is smaller but still considerable: 61.5 per cent of PhD students are from the richest socio-economic backgrounds, and 20.2 per cent are from the poorest backgrounds. Only the arts have lower progression rates to PhDs for poorer students than STEM does.

The report estimates that if disadvantaged high achievers progressed at the same rates as students from higher socio-economic backgrounds, the UK could have had 52 per cent more STEM PhD researchers and 41 per cent more STEM master’s students from low socio-economic backgrounds between 2015 and 2023, totalling 5,676 “potential talented researchers being lost from the pipeline”.

There are also significant gender variations, with 64.7 per cent of STEM PhD candidates being male.

“The future of research and innovation in the UK relies on the STEM PhD pipeline,” the report says. “The researchers who will lead our response to the climate crisis, to breakthroughs in health, to the safe development of artificial intelligence, are in that pipeline.” 

“This report shows that too many are being lost, and not for want of talent, ambition or resilience. They are lost because the path to a PhD is harder to navigate for students without family money, or without family experience of higher education. Every student who steps off that path takes with them a contribution to knowledge that will not now be made. That is a loss the country cannot afford, and it is a loss we can choose to stop.”

One biological sciences PhD student told the researchers that: “It didn’t occur to me that I could be a researcher”, while an engineering and technology PhD student said: “No one explained any of this stuff…there’s a complete barrier because we don’t know what we don’t know.”

Another biological sciences student added: “I don’t have any luxury of family members being able to support me.”

The report recommends that the government, major funders and regulators expand widening participation efforts to master’s and PhDs, as well as expanding targeted information about postgraduate studies to STEM undergraduate students. 

It also recommends a “more comprehensive PhD funding package”, which could include a built-in one-year master’s “to create a stronger pathway from undergraduate study through to PhD”. 

Cassandra Hugill, chief executive of the Martingale Foundation, said: “Strengthening access to postgraduate STEM study is not just a matter of fairness but also an economic and societal necessity. The UK’s capability in sectors including AI, quantum, cybersecurity and fusion energy depends on the strongest possible pipeline of domestic talent.

“This issue demands urgent, coordinated action from government, funders and across higher education – otherwise, the UK risks its position as a research and innovation leader.”

Jimmy Volmink, the executive director, equity at the Wellcome Trust, added: “Behind every barrier to postgraduate study is a person whose ideas may never have the opportunity to benefit science and society.”

juliette.rowsell@timeshighereducation.com