Can the Civil Society Covenant Work?

Posted on July 20, 2025 by Athene Donald

This past week I attended what struck me as an extraordinary event. Held at the Science Museum in London, it brought together multiple ministers and Secretaries of State plus many senior representatives of the Voluntary Sector/Civil Society organisations, plus some hangers-on like myself. Described as a Mission Summit with the aim of launching the Civil Society Covenant, it was addressed by the Prime Minister himself, colleagues from the Cabinet and several other ministers. I was struck by how many of these parliamentarians had worked in the voluntary sector prior to becoming MPs and it did make their contributions feel very personal and committed.

Kier Starmer Launch Civil Society Covenant July 17 2025

As Lisa Nandy (Secretary of State at the Department of Culture, Media and Sports which is leading the initiative) put it in her introduction to the event, this covenant is meant to mark ‘a new chapter in the relationship between this government and the remarkable civil society organisations that form the backbone of our communities’. The buzz in the room, and the enthusiasm with which the speakers from the organisations present engaged in conversations with ministers, suggests there is high level of support for the initiative. Seen as a way of bringing local organisations into both decision-making and delivery across the different missions – safer streets, opportunity for all and so on – there was a belief that bottom-up provision is every bit as important as Whitehall top-down imposed solutions to the manifest problems.

You may be wondering why I was there at this invitation-only event. After all, I’m not known as a leader in the voluntary sector for good reason: I’m not one. But I am involved with the Opportunity Mission through my work with the Department for Education, as Chair of their Scientific Advisory Committee. What I see there is the importance of education not just sitting in a silo, but being closely tied in with other departments. Health for instance: a child can’t thrive if their eyesight is weak, let alone if they should be in receipt of an Education, Health and Care Plan, EHCP, the cause of so much public angst about SEND provision. There’ll be no thriving if their family is homeless, something that may fall under any or all of the Department for Work and Pensions, Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, and Ministry of Justice as well as Education. And so on.

Government by mission is a wonderful concept, but probably harder to deliver than anyone would like. Minister after (Cabinet) Minister expressed their wish to see cross-departmental working to deliver on their goals, but a sense of frustration that department staff have been too conditioned by working in silos under the previous Government to embrace this new style swiftly. Clearly, culture change takes time.

One of the passionate speakers, totally brave and honest, was Jess Phillips. She was talking about something very close to her heart, and something she knows a great deal about: violence against women and children. She was in discussion with those working, for instance, in women’s refuges. She was explicit in her determination to change the focus of the work from looking after victims to dealing with predators so that safe spaces like refuges are no longer needed. (Sadly, that may be a while away.) There was a recognition of how much things have improved since the earliest refuges were opened. I am old enough to remember when Erin Pizzey set up the very first shelter for domestic violence victims, and the uproar such action provoked.

This particular panel pointed out that everyone has a duty to look out for those suffering at the hands of family members, but were clear that in the latter case this should not just be another burden to add to the work of teachers. Phillips called on everyone in the room to do their bit. I sat there feeling guilty thinking, when have I ever helped a victim in this way? Then felt a little reassured that by my work championing women in my own University, by helping to raise issues around lower-level harassment and predation, I had been active in my own sphere. I reiterate, anyone who sees bad behaviour and does nothing – in whatever situation – is complicit and should be aware that, if it is safe to act in the moment or thereafter, they should do so.

It was an extraordinary day because the sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ was palpable. One felt a sense that a healthier relationship between Government, in both Whitehall and  local town halls, and the committed individuals who carry so much of the burden of looking after the vulnerable and those with no voice of their own, was not only possible but going to be delivered for the good of us all. I’m sure many readers will be used to a feeling of disbelief that things could change for the better, when listening to the average politician, or a lack of confidence that the politicians themselves had conviction about the words they use. But, on this occasion, I did come away feeling positive, that mission government could  be made to work for everyone and to make this country a better place for those who currently struggle through no fault of their own. Fingers crossed.

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Upping the Engineering Talent Pipeline

Posted on July 6, 2025 by Athene Donald

The Government’s recently published Modern Industrial Strategy has a lot to say about skills. For instance, it commits to

‘enhance skills and increase access to talent by reforming the skills and employment support system to create a strong pipeline into the IS-8’

and it specifically identifies the need for

‘an increase in technology training and boosts for engineering, digital, and defence skills’.

There are many aspects that Skills England will need to get right if these aspirations are to come to fruition, and these will need to be implemented across all the different stages of the education system.

One of the problems facing an area such as engineering is that it is not in the school curriculum and neither students nor teachers may be well informed about the breadth of opportunities the discipline offers. Careers advice in schools remains distinctly patchy, A 2022 review of careers guidance for the Sutton Trust found that of classroom teachers in state schools, only 40% were aware of the Gatsby benchmarks, the framework for careers guidance. Although the figure was significantly higher (94%) for senior school leaders, this suggests effective guidance is not making its way into the classroom. It needs to and work has to be done to make sure this happens in both primary and secondary.

A further challenge for engineering and computing is that they both have some of the largest gender imbalances in both qualifications and the workforce. Early years stereotyping is endemic in our society, and too many young girls cannot imagine that they could fit in and/or be welcome in these fields. Much more effort needs to be put in to countering these stereotypes in the classroom from the earliest years (although that’s no quick fix for the problem across wider society). Teachers need to be aware of the pitfalls casual stereotyping creates.

As Alex Knight, the winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2025 Rooke Award for excellence in public promotion of engineering has said

‘Children form beliefs early: about themselves, about the world, and about their place in it. By the age of seven, many have already decided what’s ‘for boys’ and what’s ‘for girls’. Engineering is still seen as a man’s world, so girls start to believe they don’t belong there….. But when a young girl meets an engineer who is a woman she can relate to, something extraordinary happens. That girl begins to imagine herself in the same role. Engineering becomes not an abstract discipline, but a human one.’

She urges female engineers to get into the classroom, arguing that, despite the low numbers of women in the field, there would nevertheless be plenty for every primary school to have one come to talk to the children. EngineeringUK is leading a partnership with a collective mission of significantly increasing the number of girls in education pathways to engineering and technology at age 18.  But changing the whole school ethos, as the IOP has demonstrated needs to be achieved, is hard work.

Not all routes into engineering careers require a degree, and the UK is an outlier in the OECD in how many adults possess Level 4 and Level 5 qualifications. The same Sutton Review of Careers guidance mentioned earlier found that post-GCSE’s nearly half (46%) of 17- and 18-year olds (year 13) say they have received a large amount of information on university routes during their education, compared to just 10% who say the same for apprenticeships.

The incentives in the current system encourage schools to prioritise university routes. Furthermore, FE Colleges find it hard to recruit staff to teach in shortage areas such as engineering, because lecturers with relevant qualifications can earn so much more outside colleges. Here the Industrial Strategy has positive news for the sector, with promised investment in colleges – for both equipment and infrastructure – and targeted retention incentive payments for early career FE teachers in STEM. It is high time – as the 2019 Augar Review said in no uncertain terms – that FE Colleges were not seen as the poor relations in the post-16 landscape, because they are crucial for so many teenagers. Skills England need to turn the promises from the Industrial Strategy paper into a coherent strategy, taking the warm words about, for instance, launching Technical Excellence Colleges, and turning it into a landscape that works.

Somewhere in this post-16 landscape a grip needs to be got on T Levels. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) may not be an obvious feeder group of commentators into this space, but their report this past week regarding T Levels has obvious implications. T Levels were – and are – intended to be a vocational course to help students into skilled employment, higher study or apprenticeships. This is clearly of relevance to the supply of engineers of all types. The qualification’s introduction has not been smooth: their numerical take-up has been far below the original intentions, finding the required 45 day work-based placement has been a challenge for some, and drop out rates have been high as well as success rates relatively low. However, the scheme is set to grow, or at least, that’s still the wish.

One of the problems the recent PAC report highlighted was the lack of awareness of the existence of T Levels, citing that in 2023 only 50% of students in years 9 to 11 were aware of T Levels. If the suite of qualification is to succeed, schools should make sure that all students know of these qualifications – one T level is equivalent to 3 A Levels – and that pressure is not put on students to go the ‘gold standard’ route of A Levels. As a nation the vocational route has always been perceived as the poor relation in our education system. That is not necessarily to the benefit of individuals or the economy. But the potential limitation of finding a timely and local placement has caused frustration and stress amongst students. An expansion of the scheme will need to iron out wrinkles.

Finally, there is the major issue of up- and re-skilling adults. With many jobs potentially under threat due to automation and the increasing use of AI, this has to be a major focus. The still-to-be-put-into-operation Lifelong Learning Entitlement (currently due to start in January 2027) may provide some solution. However, just because a loan is available does not necessarily mean an adult with dependents and commitments will feel able to drop out of work to study. In both digital and technical (including engineering) free 16 week-long bootcamps are on offer, with the money now being devolved locally. These too have their problems. One of the key attractions was intended to be a guaranteed job interview at the end, but the Government’s own evaluation has shown many participants have found this to be illusory or untargeted. For some participants, their employer facilitated attendance; many others were unemployed at the time of signing up. Whether 16 weeks is adequate to achieve desired goals will clearly depend on both the knowledge-base of the participant and the end point of the course.

Just focussing on this one sector from the industrial strategy, it is clear that at every stage of the pipeline works needs to be done to ensure an appropriate supply of talent. Whether looking at the issue from a Department for Education, a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, Department of Defence, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government or a Department for Business and Trade perspective, there is work to be done. That engineering crosses so many departments and domains can only complicate the issues. But a ‘modern’ industrial strategy needs to get this right.

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Atomic Human – or Atomic Man?

Posted on June 28, 2025 by Athene Donald

I’m not convinced by the idea of AI throwing everyone out of jobs or taking over the world, but I thought I should read up some thoughtful writing on the subject, so I turned to Neil Lawrence’s 2024 book (recently released in paperback), The Atomic Human. I learned a lot from it, but I was struck by the meandering tales he introduces of characters from the past, ranging from Socrates, via his grandfather to the Terminator. It wasn’t that these stories didn’t have a point. Of course they all did, but the characters wove themselves into the fabric of the text in ways that sometimes seemed to me to obscure more than they helped.

I found this mode of writing frustrating, and not necessarily illuminating. Then I read the review of the book by Adam Rutherford, which appeared in the Guardian last year, and realised how absolutely right Adam was about the unhealthy preponderance of great white men of the past (as well as the Terminator with, apparently, 16 appearances dotted around the text) in these stories. As he puts it

‘In a chapter called Enlightenment, we veer from Great Man classic tales of Isaac Newton, Winston Churchill and Stephen Hawking, down a cul-de-sac visiting William Blake and Michelangelo, then to Lewis Carroll and Bertrand Russell, and all the way to Elon Musk, via many more.’

That is a fine old collection of the great and good, but, as he goes on to say

‘I scanned the index and found that 15 women are named in this 448-page book (16 if you count the goddess Hera), as well as the mention of two groups of anonymous women (Royal Navy Wrens, and the women of Bletchley Park). Winnie-the-Pooh, a fictional bear who as far as I am aware, did not make any pronouncements on intelligence research, or the AI revolution, is mentioned 17 times.’

I will admit that, despite all I have said and written about the role of women in science, I had not picked up the gender bias in the text; the woman who appeared most I think was Amelia Earhart. So conditioned am I – along with most of the population but unlike Adam – I had failed to spot that women were all but invisible. The frequent appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh I had spotted. If I were an adolescent girl. maybe I would have been more aware of the absence of role models I could identify with and thereby received an unwanted subliminal message.

Yet, looking more widely away from the book, the few women who did get opportunities to shine in the scientific and technical world from the late nineteenth century on, are beginning to be allowed to come out of the woodwork. Around the time I finished Lawrence’s book, I came across the following on Bluesky

Quantum women

This post highlights a group of women from the 1920s who are finally getting some attention for what they contributed to quantum physics. As time goes on, more and more women are being identified as having made significant if, in general, unsung contributions.

Locally, I could identify Katherine Blodgett, an American who came to Cambridge to work at the Cavendish in 1924 under Ernest Rutherford, with the support of Irving Langmuir, her boss at GE based in Schenectady in upstate New York. She was the first woman to gain a PhD from the Cavendish, so you might have expected her to appear in the 2016 voluminous history of the department written by Malcolm Longair (its former head) Maxwell’s Enduring Legacy. But no, there is no mention of her at all. Some years later (2023) the department did try to rectify this error by writing a blogpost about her, identifying her seminal role  (although its appearance is somewhat marred by the fact the hypertext relating to the photos has not been correctly formatted so the photo of her sitting in the midst of a sea of men is not online).

However, I knew about her long before that, because I had to walk past the wall of photos of generations of graduate students every day to get to the canteen or library. She stood out, along with a few other women (sometimes in very fine, if less than convenient hats) from around the turn of the century. They, presumably did not get PhDs, not least because no one did at Cambridge until 1919. But, beyond the photos, Langmuir-Blodgett films were something I lectured about, and some of my research students used them in their research (they are monolayers, or multiple monolayers, of surfactants laid down on glass or liquid surfaces). Sadly, the Cavendish cannot lay claim to their invention as this was done back at GE and not as part of Blodgett’s PhD.

I think this episode about Blodgett is symptomatic of how so much of our scientific history is narrated: great men of science, with the few women who were involved traditionally being invisible but at last increasingly being brought into focus.

For instance, the staff who did all the calculations at the Harvard Observatory with Edward Pickering were all female from 1880 onwards (a group sometimes unkindly referred to as Pickering’s Harem). This wasn’t a great act of liberalism on his part, but simply because they were cheap. According to David Grier’s book (When Computers were Human), Pickering apparently said

‘a skillful [astronomical] observer should never be obliged to spend time on what could be done equally well by an assistant at a much lower salary.’

Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt were two of these women, whose names are now much more widely known in the field, for their seminal work in classification of the stars and measurement of distance respectively. They were far more than simply cheap labour.

Pickering’s argument on cost was essentially the same one that had been made by William Herschel when he applied – successfully – to Queen Charlotte for funding for his sister Caroline to work as his assistant, more than 100 years earlier.

‘Nor could I have been prevailed upon to mention now, were it not for her evident use in the observations that are to be made…and the increase of the annual expense which, if my Sister were to decline, that office would probably amount to nearly one hundred pounds more for an assistant.’

As has been seen in the case of female composers (and as I wrote about previously on this blog), more and more significant women from the past are finally getting some attention in orchestral programmes and on Radio 3. It is high time women like Katherine Blodgett find their place in write-ups of science’s history. Whether if Neil Lawrence had tried harder to find anecdotes of women who would have fitted into his narrative he could have increased the number of references to women in his book I can’t tell. But I suspect it ought to have been possible to weave in Hedy Lamarr’s contribution to the development of frequency hopping (literally, not just a pretty face in her case) or some other notable names such as Ada Lovelace, Wendy Hall, Grace Hopper or Marissa Mayer, to name just a few who come immediately to my mind.

It would be nice to think in general authors would try harder to diversify their anecdotes, at least when considering the past half century or so. We don’t always need to quote Churchill or Newton, particularly if we are discussing a new field like AI. However, knowing Neil a little, I am quite sure if writing the book again but with the memory of Rutherford’s review, he would want to find more female examples to quote. I suspect he, just like me when I read the book, simply failed to notice the bias because culturally we are all so used to it that it is invisible. That’s what has to change to move towards an equitable society.

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Skills, What Skills?

Posted on May 30, 2025 by Athene Donald

The answer to many of today’s problems seems to lie in the magic word ‘skills’, but this word can be used to mean so many different things, depending on audience and context, that in itself it is far from sufficient to cure anything. Yet, it is absolutely right to focus on the general area as one that needs attention, it’s just that it needs so much attention it might be better if we could find a new, more discerning vocabulary.

To some, skills means a technical skill: say that of a plumber or an electrician, whereas to others it might mean ‘soft skills’, such as teamwork and communication. The skills level could refer to someone with a PhD or someone who left school with few formal qualifications at all. It could mean foundational skills such as numeracy or literacy, or advanced skills such as operating a clean room or flow cytometry equipment. And who the provider of such skills should be will obviously depend on which skills we’re talking about. Certainly, all of schools, FE Colleges and universities need to be included in the list of providers, as well as employers.

If the work of Skills England is to progress, as they finally move out of their shadow form into solid reality, they have to know what challenges they need to face up to. Their new Board, announced this week, has their work cut out for them. Their remit is potentially vast, charged with: bringing coherence to the current incoherent state of play; working out where the ‘skills gaps’ are (which begs the question of which sorts of skills); shaping technical education to respond to the current needs, including how the new Growth and Skills Levy (the new name for the Apprenticeship Levy) can be spent; and provide advice on how this will feed into a clear plan appropriate for a growth economy. No small order then.

Under the old Apprenticeship Levy there had been a steady drift towards higher level qualifications at the expense of fresh school leavers, and already it is clear this will no longer be permissible: formally, level 7 (i.e. Masters Level) apprenticeships will only be available to those aged 21 and under, in essence stopping this route. Such a change was advocated earlier in the year by Alison Wolf in her policy primer Saving Apprenticeships, a publication containing, as she put it to me in a private conversation, ‘far more than you ever wanted to know about apprentices’. It is indeed a comprehensive discussion of the state of play at the time of writing (it was published at the start of this year).  She wanted a clear distinction between these higher level apprentices, which she saw as essentially employers accessing CPD on the cheap for their employees, and apprenticeships enabling youngsters to get their foot on the job ladder or adults seeking to gain new, sub-degree, qualifications and skills.

Adult education has long been a poor child of the education system. Gone are the days of easy access to multiple evening classes provided locally to allow those who had struggled at school to have a second chance at gaining qualifications. Money is too tight in the sector for much to be available. Furthermore, particularly at FE Colleges, there is often a shortage of teachers. But if (and so far it is an ‘if’, as it’s not really happened substantially yet as people try to work out how to make best use of it) AI is going to remove many jobs, there will be a pressing need for adults to retrain for where the jobs still are. In many more technical areas, FE teachers are in short supply because the pay is so dismal compared with what they could earn elsewhere (as is true for Physics teachers in schools). Indeed, FE lecturers are paid badly by any standards, typically about £10,000 less than an experienced school teacher.

With the plans for revitalising the construction industry workforce recently announced, adult learners will potentially benefit from £14 million of adult skills funding for construction to be devolved to local mayors. This initiative is expected to support up to 5,000 additional adult learners, and new level 2 courses relevant to the sector will be set up. So specific goals for the revised Growth and Apprenticeship levy are beginning to emerge.

Plans such as these are all very well, but every apprenticeship – at whatever level – needs an employer to take them on and to cover much of the cost, including salary. At present, there are far more people wishing to start an apprenticeship than openings available. The construction industry works largely with small firms covering, perhaps, just one or two specialities (electrical, plumbing and so on). These typically act as sub-contractors as part of a larger job and may well struggle to cope with trainin someone just starting out, not to mention being put off by the complexity of the current course landscape (anyhow limited by local availability and transport), funding mechanisms and overall bureaucracy. So, there are many challenges in ensuring a steady supply of SMEs willing and able to take a school-leaver (or, indeed, an adult) on an apprenticeship which will need to be ironed out if the ‘skills’ arena is to progress as the economy needs.

Thus, although the advent of Skills England, and the direction of travel implied by both the Growth and Opportunity Missions, suggest an ecosystem that is changing, the nature of that change and the effectiveness of new initiatives, structures and any new funding to handle the ‘skills’ agenda remains to be seen. Explicit disaggregation of what ‘skills’ are, so that in any context it is clear everyone is talking about the same thing, will be required if appropriate interventions can be successfully introduced as part of any new strategy.

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Choosing Your Image

Posted on May 12, 2025 by Athene Donald

We all know people who seem quintessentially comfortable in their own skins, who effortlessly fit in to whatever group they want to belong to and reign supreme in their world (at least socially). But, note my use of the word ‘seem’. It is worth pondering whether that is their own lived reality.

I’m prompted to this train of thought by hearing a Radio 3 presenter discuss Edward Elgar as someone who ‘often felt an outsider’. His reputation now implies that he represents the height of Edwardian ‘pomp and circumstance’, the imperial zeitgeist. Whether or not you think that’s a good thing, he would seem to have been right inside the system of the day. Yet, as a self-taught musician, that was apparently not his own sense of self. He felt an outsider, because he hadn’t been trained in the formal schools of music like his peers.

I can think of many colleagues who occasionally have let their masks slip to let their insecure inner self creep out. The amazingly successful professor, with prizes a-plenty to their name, who clearly was damaged by being a nerd at their posh public school where the ‘in set’ were the Rugby players. Knowing that, I could see how he always felt that he was on the outside, however much others felt that’s where they were while he was a key central player in the research environment.  It didn’t make him an easy person for others to interact with. Or the Fellow of that grandest of Cambridge Colleges, Trinity, who admitted he never felt he truly belonged because he had been educated elsewhere, whereas many on the fellowship were Trinity through and through. The College may have changed (after all, its current Master Sally Davies was not Cambridge educated at all), but that feeling of being an outsider will probably go with him to the grave.

Or there was the senior colleague to whom I was once unburdening myself of the feeling of not fitting in as a female physicist, who startled me by saying when things went wrong for him, or when people were rude, he tried not to believe it was because he was a Jew. Despite having known him and worked closely with him for many years, I’d never known (or indeed thought about) his religious affiliation. For most of us, at least for some if not all of the time, there will be some fear, niggling or much bigger, that everyone else fits in but you have some stain on your pedigree that somehow means you are only on the outside looking in, different from everyone else.

Reading Simon Fanshawe’s book, The Power of Difference, has introduced the word ‘covering’ into my lexicon. I knew the concept because, now I know it is a name, I know how I have used it at different times. It’s not dissimilar to ‘code-switching’, to move between different manners of speaking (something Michelle Obama discusses as a black woman navigating a predominantly white world in her book The Light We Carry); or to the ‘masking’ behaviour of autistic girls Gina Rippon discusses in her recent book The Lost Girls of Autism. Whatever you call it, you’re probably familiar with behaviour along these lines – at least unless you’re incredibly sure of yourself. The feeling you need to act a role in order to fit in with whatever group you’re currently amongst.

The time I remember doing this best, or perhaps I mean worst as I look back at how I behaved with some horror, was at an annual conference in my field. Being one of a paltry number of women, I wanted – fairly consciously – to be ‘one of the boys’. One who was welcome down the pub and seen as a good laugh. So I adopted a persona which was not my own; somewhat raucous and laughing at the double entendres of my associates, downing pints. At some point I decided I had had enough. Perhaps I felt secure enough in my affiliation to the in-crowd to feel I could drop that un-me persona, but I’m sure there will be a generation of men who believed that was the true me.

Was it worth doing? Maybe. It certainly seemed so at the time, yet in retrospect it just feels distasteful. There is a price to pay for acting outside one’s true self. It is important to work out what really matters and what is less important. In order to progress, in science or wherever, it may require you to put on a false sense of confidence as you give a conference presentation or take on some new committee role. That is probably worth doing since no one wants to listen to the lecturer mumbling away inaudibly (however exciting the results), or dropping the committee papers on the floor – less likely in this paperless age admittedly – due to nerves. But pretending to be someone you are not in other ways – as I did when I assumed a cheeky, extrovert and raucous character – is hardly necessary and may backfire. These are difficult balancing acts to get right. Yet each of us, every day, is faced with decisions big or small about how to portray oneself and align it with who we really are.

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