Generation Delta: Nurturing the next generation of BAME women professors
Among all academic staff in UK universities, 2% are black, 10% are Asian. Only 1% of UK university staff with professorships are black and 7% are Asian, according to data published this year by the Higher Education Statistics Agency.
DSA President Uma Kambhampati in her role as Professor at the University of Reading is part of a consortium of six universities working on a project – Generation Delta – to improve the access and retention of home BAME women in academia. This project is one of 13 projects funded by Research England and the Office for Students and is at the mid-way point (2022-2026). Generation Delta involves six institutions: University of Leeds; Goldsmiths; Plymouth; Reading; Sheffield and Sunderland and received funding of £797,264.
The project aims to address the institutional and individual barriers experienced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic women at different stages of the PGR life cycle – access and admissions, retention and progression within the programme and career development following doctoral studies. It is hoped that the work done within this project will lay the foundations for a long-term increase in the number of Black, Asian and minority women gaining professorships in higher education institutions in England. The programme has three components:
- Programme of roundtables for staff, designed to embed more equitable practice in the PGR life cycle
- Programme of workshops for students on how to navigate Higher Education.
- The creation of a new PGR Student Network for BAME women.
At the mid-point of the project, two years of workshops and roundtables has been completed. The mentorship programme has begun and the student network is meeting for the first time at a Student Conference in Sheffield in March 2024.
Surveys of students have indicated, amongst other things, that domestic BAME women students do not see the enrolment process as being straightforward and see their academic experience as being improved if they were to have a BAME mentor. The project has responded to this need by launching a mentoring scheme in September with 33 mentees and 20 mentors, all of whom are BAME women professors. It is worth noting that, not surprisingly, the experiences of domestic BAME women differ from those of international BAME women in our universities.
Find out more about Generation Delta (Leeds).