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As part of our ongoing work to support Black chemists and understand the barriers that may prevent Black people from following successful careers in chemistry, we analysed Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) data focusing on ethnicity and particularly Black representation in chemistry.

This data analysis first appeared in the Chemistry World article .

The data show that there is an under-representation of ethnic minority-identifying people in academic progression in chemistry, which is particularly pronounced for Black chemists. There is a clear retention problem and we are losing talent.

HESA data have been treated according to the , and percentages have been calculated from numbers that were rounded to the nearest 5 unless otherwise stated.

Figures and main findings

At the undergraduate level, the percentage of Black students is higher than the census baseline, there is then a significant point of attrition from undergraduate to PhD, as indicated by the drop from 4.8 to 1.3% Black representation (Figure 1). This drops even further through the academic pipeline, to 0.9% non-professorial staff and 0% professors who are Black. Note that, according to HESA anonymisation methodology, numbers fewer than five are rounded down to zero and will result in a percentage calculation of zero.

Figure 1. Ethnicity breakdown for chemistry students and staff at UK universities. The dashed lines show the percentage representation in the UK population. Sources: 2017/18 HESA [1] and 2011 census data [2].

Focusing on undergraduate students in chemistry, the ethnicity breakdown by gender (Figure 2) shows that there is a lower percentage of Black men (3.4%) than Black women (6.6%).

Figure 2. Ethnicity breakdown for UK chemistry undergraduate students, by gender. Source: 2017/18 HESA data [1].

The ethnicity breakdown for undergraduate students in chemistry by institution type (Figure 3) shows a trend in Black representation, with the highest percentage of Black students at post-92 universities (8.9%), followed by those at non-Russell Group universities (4.7%), and lastly the lowest percentage of Black students is found at Russell Group universities (3.3%). This trend may provide further insights into the barriers behind the observed retention gap for Black chemists throughout the academic pipeline.

Figure 3. Ethnicity breakdown for UK chemistry undergraduate students, by institution type. Source: 2017/18 HESA data [1]

Figure 4 compares the ethnicity breakdown for biology, chemistry and physics, and the academic retention of Black scientists in these disciplines. Focusing on Black representation, there is a greater loss through the academic pipeline in chemistry and biology, as compared to physics. The observed trend for biology is similar to that in chemistry. Both biology and chemistry have a significant point of attrition for Black scientists between undergraduate and PhD studies and a continued loss of talent to the non-professorial staff and professor levels. In comparison, physics has a lower representation of Black undergraduate and PhD students compared to chemistry and biology (with statistical overlap between the three subjects at the non-professorial staff and professor stages), but the attrition from undergraduate to PhD studies is not as large in physics as is observed for the other two disciplines.

Figure 4. Comparison of ethnicity breakdown and Black representation for chemistry, biology and physics students and staff at UK universities. Source: 2017/2018 HESA data [1].

We will continue to work with the community to understand and break down the barriers experienced by Black chemists.

Data tables