Image: The Conservative Party (Martyn Wheatley CCHQ, Parsons Media) [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr
Science minister accused of having “zero evidence” for sex and gender claims and misunderstanding research
Academics have been left dismayed after science secretary Michelle Donelan promised to end what she termed the “creep of wokeism” in science.
In a strongly worded speech to the Conservative Party conference on 3 October, Donelan told delegates that scientific research is at risk of being harmed as she claimed “university bureaucrats” are telling researchers they cannot ask “legitimate research questions about biological sex”.
Many in the R&D sector have expressed outrage at the comments, saying they will negatively impact LGBTQIA+ academics and show a misunderstanding of how research works.
“Donelan’s mission to address ‘wokeism in science’ is a solution in search of a problem,” said Kevin Guyan, a research fellow at the University of Glasgow and author of a book on gender, sex and sexuality data.
“Donelan offers zero evidence to support the claim that researchers are being told they cannot ask questions about biological sex.”
Guyan told Research Professional News that “many thousands” of researchers across the UK have “dedicated their careers to making scientific disciplines more welcoming, diverse and inclusive”.
“Donelan’s comments are an insult to these endeavours and reflect the dying days of a cruel government that is demonising trans people to mask their own failures in power,” he said.
‘Under attack’
Edd Edmondson, who supports academics in his role as a high-performance computing systems manager at UCL, told Research Professional News he is worried for his LGBTQIA+ colleagues following Donelan’s speech.
“High-level policies absolutely have an impact on individuals, on who can be recruited, on who remains working in scientific research, and on the workplace as a whole,” he said, stressing he was expressing his own views and not UCL’s.
“For that reason, I’m hugely concerned about the way the Conservative Party is choosing to spin this, and not considering the actual major challenges to scientific research in the UK.”
Donelan said science is “under attack” from the “slow creep of wokeism” and announced a review that would investigate the use of sex and gender questions in scientific research and statistics, including public bodies. This will be tasked with producing “robust guidance” on the topic within six months and will be conducted by Alice Sullivan, head of research at UCL’s Social Research Institute.
The minister claimed she was “taking a stand” to “depoliticise” science.
Paul Dorfman, a visiting fellow at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex, said he is “troubled by what seems to be creeping political interference in science as any attempt at political control of the scientific agenda may lead us down a very dark path”.
“As for the ‘wokeism in science’ rhetoric, it seems much more about whistling in the dark for a red-herring than an issue of any substance,” he added.
‘Misunderstanding modern academia’
Eerke Boiten, a professor of cybersecurity at De Montfort University, said the idea of “de-politicising science” displays “a misunderstanding of modern academia”.
UK research is heavily driven by impact and measuring how academic work contributes to improving people’s lives, including its effect on society, the economy, culture, public policy, health and the environment.
“[Impact] is by definition political…Research is also undertaken under ethical constraints and policies, which again links to politics,” said Boiten. “Preventing social injustice and discrimination is part of ethics and a possible research impact—but happens to be exactly what “wokeness” aims for.”
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has been contacted for a comment.