Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what discussions he has had with UKRI on the diversity of the PhD students it is funding; and what data is collected to assess diversity.

I regularly meet with UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) Chief Executive. BEIS works closely with UKRI to ensure that a whole systems approach is taken in embedding equality, diversity and inclusion across the research and innovation system. We expect UKRI, and the research organisations it funds to deliver doctoral training, to ensure that equality, diversity and inclusion is considered and supported at all stages of the doctoral programme.

UKRI collects diversity data of UKRI funded PhD Studentships, specifically on age, disability, gender and ethnicity and has published its first set of harmonised diversity data for all seven research councils for the past five academic years. This is an important step in understanding the diversity of our research and innovation communities. UKRI is investigating the collection of diversity data to include other protected characteristics and publishing data at a more granular level.