Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Staff experiences of racism
- Part III Student experiences of racism
- Part IV Research systems enabling racism
- Part V Teaching systems enabling racism
- Part VI Pedagogies that enable racism
- Part VII Governance, strategy and operational systems
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Index
7 - Research funding and contracts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of abbreviations
- Notes on contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Staff experiences of racism
- Part III Student experiences of racism
- Part IV Research systems enabling racism
- Part V Teaching systems enabling racism
- Part VI Pedagogies that enable racism
- Part VII Governance, strategy and operational systems
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Index
Summary
Introduction
This chapter interrogates the pervasion of racism in research funding, with regards to issues faced by staff in bidding for and managing research grants and contracts with local, national and international partnerships (Li et al, 2021). There are racial disparities of research grants and bids reflected in the number of grants awarded to Black, Asian and Ethnic minority researchers in HE being much lower than to White applicants for research funding. Contracts and funding in research collaborations are considered here as areas for change, particularly with regards to managing funding and contracts with integrity and eliminating racism through vetting, while ensuring research contracts are held with partners that champion anti-racism or are on an explicit journey to becoming anti-racist. We know that
in the UK, senior researchers from an ethnic minority are half as likely to have success with a research funding application as their White peers, according to figures from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) for the financial year 2018– 2019. And if they succeed, they get ￡564,000 on average, versus ￡670,000 for White researchers. (Murugesu & Vaughan, 2020)
The recent UKRI calls for research on Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities affected by COVID-19 have also not awarded any projects led by Black academic applicants (Inge, 2020). The funders play a critical role in perpetuating racism and colonialism with ‘some funders [finding] the language of structural racism too controversial or political and are unlikely to support work that puts the issue front and centre’ (Brown et al, 2019, p 5).
In a recent report it was found that:
in all categories of applications, between 8– 10% of applicants do not disclose their ethnicity.
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- Anti-Racism in Higher EducationAn Action Guide for Change, pp. 83 - 89Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2022