Our research team is currently working to support an action-oriented research project with the Graduate Research College who are working in partnership with Leading Routes to support BME postgraduate access and participation. Leading Routes is a pioneering initiative that aims to prepare the next generation of Black academics to strengthen the academic pipeline for black students, from a black-led perspective.
Authors such as Bhopal (2017) and Rollock (2019) have argued for a number of years that the relative lack of BAME academic staff members in UK universities is a key contributing factor for the white-BAME attainment gap at undergraduate level.
Recent reports by Universities UK/NUS (2019) and the Royal Historical Society (2018) elucidate on how BAME staff underrepresentation, particularly in leadership roles, leads to a failure to recognise and challenge longstanding structural biases within HEIs.
Leading Routes were invited to run workshops for postgraduates who are interested in applying for or currently doing a PhD and for Kent PhD supervision staff who supervise BME students.
Our proposed research with BME students and staff will therefore provide an opportunity not only to improve BME access and participation at PGR level, but also to position the University as a sector leader in enacting significant and long-overdue structural reform in the HE sector more generally.