Female and ethnic minority early career researchers will ¡°reverse mentor¡± senior professors as part of a drive to remove barriers to career progression faced by under-represented groups in science.

The project, which could, for example, involve a black, female academic at the start of her career coaching a white, male professor, is part of a ?5.5?million UK-wide anti-discrimination drive being funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.

Jon Rowe, director of research in the University of Birmingham¡¯s College of Engineering and Physical Science, is the leader of the ¡°reverse mentoring¡± project. He said that female academics in science, technology and engineering departments ¡°often struggle to progress in their careers¡± and yet ¡°the underlying causes of this are not fully understood¡±.

It is hoped that the mentoring project will expose some of the ¡°unconscious biases¡± held by senior staff, which are often blamed for female and minority scholars¡¯ career challenges.

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¡°Quite a lot of the time, people who have been around at a university for a while assume they know everything¡­but actually they need to be educated themselves,¡± Professor Rowe told Times Higher Education.

Staff from Birmingham will work with researchers from two project partners, Aberystwyth University and University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust, to ensure that participants ¡°can still learn a lot but without putting themselves in an awkward position with their own co-workers¡±, according to Professor Rowe.

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¡°In ¡®normal¡¯ mentoring, you tend to have a senior person whose job it is to coach a junior person. In reversing that, we will take, for example, a black, female junior academic, who will then explain to a senior white, male professor what it¡¯s like being who they are, the journey they¡¯ve come through and the challenges they have faced,¡± he said.

Researchers on the project will also conduct experiments on how academics¡¯ work is valued in the run-up to the 2021 research excellence framework, compared with their non-minority colleagues, and they will trial establishing ¡°ghostbusters¡± ¨C empowering scholars to challenge senior-level decisions on issues relating to diversity.

A total of 11 initiatives, involving 23 universities, have secured funding from the EPSRC.

Another project, led by Heriot-Watt University, will create immersive virtual-reality games for line managers and research leaders to help them appreciate the challenges faced by disabled researchers.

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Kate Sang, professor of gender and employment studies at Heriot-Watt and the programme¡¯s director, said that giving managers insight into the ¡°lived experiences¡± of what it was like for those with physical or mental?impairments to work in a laboratory or attend an academic meeting could help universities to retain?such employees.

¡°A lot of disabled academics are leaving the sector because they feel they can¡¯t see a future for themselves,¡± Professor Sang said. ¡°STEM can¡¯t afford to keep losing PhD and postdoctoral researchers, but there¡¯s also the broader question of what is the impact on research if it is only able-bodied, white men doing it?¡±

rachael.pells@timeshighereducation.com