'Empowering the UK wheat community to achieve gender parity', a progressive culture improvement initiative led by the John Innes Centre (JIC), The Sainsbury Laboratory (TSL) and Rothamsted Research, has secured funding from the UKRI Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).
This 12-month project builds on the success of the Rosalind Franklin Women in Wheat Champions programme, led by Professor Diane Saunders, group leader, in collaboration with TSL, which was established to address the severe lack of female representation in wheat research in academia at the independent career stage.
This new funding now enables this highly successful female career development programme to be cascaded across organisations within one of the largest coordinated wheat programmes in the UK, the Delivering Sustainable Wheat (DSW) Institute Strategic Programme (ISP, 2023 – 2028) funded by BBSRC.
Professor Saunders commented: "It is fantastic to see this new investment to better support our exceptionally talented female wheat researchers across the UK to achieve their career goals in the wheat research area.
"Wheat is a critical staple crop worldwide and protecting wheat yields is crucial for global food security and economic stability. It is only by cultivating a diverse research community that we can truly harness the diversity in scientific thinking needed to achieve a wheat secure future."
Professor Graham Moore FRS, Director of the John Innes Centre, said: "I am proud that we are helping improve diversity and equality in science. Working with our partners to support women in science, especially in fields like wheat research, is essential to solving critical challenges like food security and sustainable agriculture.
"Our project doesn't just improve equity. It promotes new perspectives and innovation; diversity drives progress. When we empower our colleagues we're not just advancing scientific discoveries, we're helping to feed the world."
Female wheat researchers across the UK will benefit from digitised access to the exceptionally valuable career development training courses previously developed by JIC/TSL Group Leaders, and the highly successful one-to-one mentoring programme also led by JIC/TSL.
To further enhance female wheat researchers' preparedness for independence, they can also join professional female leadership training, and a dedicated career development workshop which will be held at JIC/TSL in 2025. Whilst senior wheat researchers will undertake inclusive leadership training to mitigate unconscious gender bias and help them to recognise and address organisational barriers that could be inhibiting female career progression.
Professor Nick Talbot, project co-lead and Executive Director of The Sainsbury Laboratory, said: "Supporting gender equity and empowering women in science is essential for driving innovation and addressing global challenges like food security.
"The Sainsbury Laboratory's award-winning work on the wheat blast pandemic exemplified the power of equitable, open science in protecting staple crops around the world. We are delighted to partner with the John Innes Centre in this project and build on the success of our previous collaborations with the Saunders Lab. This project reflects TSL's commitment to fostering an inclusive research culture and equipping more female scientists to lead and innovate in critical research areas."
Dr Kim Hammond-Kosack, a group leader at Rothamsted Research and leader of the Delivering Resistance work package in the Delivering Sustainable Wheat ISP, said: "We have tremendous talent emerging in the next cohort of female wheat early career researchers and the aligned PhD students across multiple UK institutes and universities. Now is the time to ensure we give this next generation the very best chance of career progression into senior positions and independence within wheat research.
"Diversity and equity in wheat research across the UK is what we are striving to achieve with this new funding. Giving voices to diversity is the only way to achieve real innovation in this sector and thereby ensure a greater diversity of wheat improvement options become available to meet the ever-growing ranges of challenges this crop and the arable sector in general is facing."
BBSRC is championing research culture transformation with initiatives designed to set new standards in inclusivity. It is committed to improving research culture and connectivity across institutes through a Connecting Culture Fund and addressing underrepresentation in the biosciences by strengthening existing networks.
'Understanding, valuing and celebrating neurodiversity' is a year-long project funded through the BBSRC Connecting Culture grant led by Dr Clare Stevenson, Head of Directorate at JIC, with Leah Milner-Campbell, neurodiversity project officer, to create a suite of tailored, bespoke training and awareness resources that can be shared across institutes.
