Universities: BAME Women in Leadership Positions

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

It is a good question from the noble Lord. I asked that very question, about what the definitions are for those universities that are part of the Russell group and for the rest of the universities in the UK—and there is not one. I acknowledge, however, the point the House has made: of the total academic staff at Russell group universities for 2017 to 2018, 11% were male professors and 3% were female professors. There is more work to be done to put pressure on the Russell group universities.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a former Russell group university teacher. Is the problem, particularly for women and women from ethnic minorities, not undergraduate recruitment, but getting through the graduate student and post-doc stage? Would the Government, in collaboration with HEFCE, look at adequate funding for people through that difficult process, as well as informal discrimination against young women as opposed to young men, which I certainly saw as a graduate student supervisor from time to time?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie]

The noble Lord is right. It is not so much for HEFCE now, but there should be collaboration between the Office for Students, Universities UK, UCU and other bodies, working together to make progress in this area.