PhD Chats: Diversity and Inclusion

The aim of this podcast is to give a platform to students and educators who have experience with the barriers to Diversity and Inclusion in postgraduate education. For the third episode of this series, we chat to Simran Kukran, a UK student currently doing her PhD at the Institute of Cancer Research and Imperial College London. Simran shares with us some of the challenges she faced with regards to diversity and inclusion in university, as someone who comes from a state school background and as a woman of colour in STEM. Simran also emphasises the importance of outreach, and we discuss how we could help foster a sense of belonging and aspiration for students who are from less privileged backgrounds. 

The aim of this podcast is to give a platform to students and educators who have experience with the barriers to diversity and inclusion in postgraduate education. In this episode, we chat to Dr. Ben Britton, an associate professor in Materials, who shares his views and opinions on diversity and inclusion in academia, from the standpoint of an established academic. As a staunch and outspoken advocate of Diversity and Inclusion, he speaks about barriers both financial and socio-political in nature, highlighting the issue of postgraduate application fees, touches on topics such as the idea of being 'token' and offers advice to prospective PhD students.

The aim of this podcast is to give a platform to students and educators who have experience with the barriers to diversity and inclusion in postgraduate education. In this episode, web chat to JanMell Dugenio, an international student from the Philippines. JanMell shares her journey from applying for a PhD position, to emigrating from her home country, and the challenges she faced along the way. She describes how international student fees posed as a real barrier to her inclusion in the program and what this means to prospective international students outside the EU and from developing countries, like her.

In this episode, hosts Aoife, Amanz and Becky introduce ourselves and the themes of the podcast. We chat about our backgrounds, why we're here, and explain how getting into a PhD program typically works in our experience.

What does a PhD student look like to you? In the UK, the average PhD student is a white male aged 25-29 years old with no known disability. In fact, BAME students make up just 17% of full-time postgraduate research roles in the UK, despite approximately 35% postgraduate students coming from outside the EU. This disparity is often the result of institutional and societal barriers inhibiting access to postgraduate education. We often assume the applicant has a strong familial base, no dependents, savings for application and relocation fees etc, which isn’t always the case and therefore creates a barrier.  In this trailer, we present snippets of our interviews with several individuals who have experience with these issues, shedding light on the barriers to diversity and inclusion in postgraduate education.