{"id":2346,"date":"2012-05-26T07:43:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-26T07:43:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=2346"},"modified":"2013-01-05T08:34:38","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T08:34:38","slug":"a-shocking-waste-of-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2012\/05\/26\/a-shocking-waste-of-talent\/","title":{"rendered":"A Shocking Waste of Talent"},"content":{"rendered":"

This piece first appeared in Fabiana, the magazine of the Fabian’s Women Network, on May 21st 2012, in an issue devoted to Finding the Way to Growth.\u00a0 The whole issue can be found here<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

Much has been made of the importance of innovation through science and technology as a means of putting the economy back on its feet, although the current Government\u2019s record on translating this into a coherent policy is patchy. The UK is also frequently cited as an economy which fails to translate its excellent science base into new products and industries. \u00a0The UK University sector is strong in research and is increasingly willing to set up spin-outs to develop their novel ideas, but the financing of these is left dangerously to the free market, which is not (at least currently) equipped to take on the risks implicit in progressing early stage ideas. As David Willetts, the Universities\u2019 Minister, said recently when comparing the UK with the US<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land of free enterprise has an innovation and research system which depends on federal and state government just like everywhere else in the Western world.\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But the UK has for many years been resolutely non-interventionist in this area, weakening our nation\u2019s ability to translate the basic science into the technology for successful products which can boost our ailing economy.<\/p>\n

There is a second aspect to this, which is not usually coupled with our innovation track record. We have a remarkably wasteful pipeline of talent into the so-called STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine) fields, particularly as far as the physical sciences and engineering are concerned. The numbers of women who enter these fields is low, the attrition rate along the pipeline deplorable. The low numbers of women entering these professions mean a shocking waste of talent, a waste for both for the individuals concerned and for society. The situation is not homogeneous, however, and different parts of the STEM landscape face different problems. In the biological sciences there are actually a majority of women studying the subject at university, yet the professoriat consists of only around 15% professors, whereas in my own field of physics, the percentage of women who choose to study the subject at university hovers stubbornly around the 25% level. Here the problem obviously lies in attracting girls at school to study the subject in the first place, whereas in the biological sciences it is keeping them there once they\u2019ve started.<\/p>\n

Culturally, our society gives out the message to young girls that physics and engineering are not for them. It does this essentially from birth, in the toys children receive (increasingly segregated by gender in toy shops, as well as colour-coded to make it easier for unwary parents to make these stereotypical selections) and in the role models the media casually displays. We may see female medics on our TV screens, but not many female engineers turn up in the soaps or even in documentaries. The loaded term \u2018geek\u2019, with its connotations of introverted and anti-social individuals lurking in a bedroom adorned with Star Trek posters, may also make these subjects unattractive to the adolescent girl. For those girls who do aspire to pursue a scientific\/technological career, because the numbers are small they can find themselves feeling isolated and peer pressure or a teacher\u2019s negativity can contribute to this discomfort, reinforcing cultural stereotypes with comments along the lines of \u2018girls can\u2019t do maths\u2019,\u00a0 thereby discouraging them from taking these subjects further.\u00a0 Let\u2019s not be coy, this sort of passive discouragement persists. Further up the career ladder, minority status inevitably persists, but now coupled with the pressures of the biological clock. An oft perpetuated myth is that scientific careers can\u2019t be combined with having a family. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, this myth survives and acts as a further deterrent. Hence our female scientifically-equipped workforce leaks out, gives up and seeks \u2018easier\u2019 careers.<\/p>\n

Why does this matter? It matters in just the same way as it matters in a boardroom. A diverse team is likely to look at problems from broader perspectives than a team made up of near-identical individuals. The collective societal decisions about which products turn out to transform a market or are just what the consumer needed (but didn\u2019t know) will be influenced by the 50% of the population who are female consumers. The values that the consumer may appreciate may not always be equally appreciated by a design team unrepresentative of the population. Hence, in simple economic terms, we need diversity to drive innovation in ways that match the public\u2019s desires and needs and so lead to the success stories of tomorrow. But it matters, too, that the talents and aspirations of half our young may be squashed and lost irrevocably.<\/p>\n

In the same vein, a discussion event <\/a>will be held at Portcullis House on June 19th on this subject. Entitled ‘Time to release the UK\u2019s potential energy’, the panel will include Chi Onwurah<\/a> (Shadow Minister for Innovation), Dr Laura Nelson<\/a>, Paul Jackson<\/a> and myself.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This piece first appeared in Fabiana, the magazine of the Fabian’s Women Network, on May 21st 2012, in an issue devoted to Finding the Way to Growth.\u00a0 The whole issue can be found here. Much has been made of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,27],"tags":[934,506,505,437,490],"class_list":["post-2346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equality","category-women-in-science","tag-diversity","tag-economy","tag-fabiana","tag-innovation","tag-leaky-pipeline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2346\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}