Credit: Ruston Youngblood youngblood, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
In June, ScienceVega editor, Michael Thame, visited the Institute for Research in School’s conference in Manchester to get an idea of how real-world research and innovation can inspire today’s young minds to take their first steps towards a career in science. What he saw was little short of incredible.
Are we about to witness a STEM change?
Efforts to make STEM subjects more representative across gender, race, ethnicity and socioeconomic factors are well known and long established. Traditionally science has been considered ‘geeky’ and male-dominated, there is a perception that the subjects are difficult and therefore only for the cleverest few, and there is a lack of understanding what a career in a STEM subject might look like. In short, and for some time now, attempts have been made to break down these perceptions to make the STEM subjects more representative of modern Britain, to actually make them that bit ‘cooler’ and subsequently much more attractive. To some extent the efforts of the last two to three decades has led to changes in the classroom; there are more girls in STEM, the drab, formula-led learning techniques of the 1980s have been revamped to involve more interesting practical work (although not as much as you might think), and the world of science is becoming far more exciting in the Digital Age.
“Conferences are my favourite part of the IRIS calendar. Seeing groups of students talk to each other about their work and learn from each other is magic. Young people will shape our future and I hope days like today remind them to keep going, keep asking the difficult questions and testing out new ideas. Imagine if every school student had an opportunity like this.”
Dr Jo Foster, Director at The Institute for Research in Schools. Image Credit: IRIS.
But could more be done? The answer, always, is yes.
Which is precisely why the work of the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS), is turning so many heads. With a goal to change the culture in education so that every young person experiences authentic research and innovation while at school, they work to a motto: ‘Our moral purpose is to capture talent and break down barriers that impact underrepresented young people in STEM’.
But how to do that? The first part is to understand the problems. The second, to offer solutions. In the case of STEM, IRIS has identified precisely what it is that seems to turn off so many to further their science education career. In the recently published R&I Project Framework: Growing Research and Innovation in Schools, the organisation highlights that despite successive governments emphasising the importance of the STEM sector (over £20bn was pledged for research and development in 2025) preparing today’s pupils to work in STEM is lacking. There is an invisible barrier in classrooms and the wider world preventing much of the huge pool of talent in our schools from realising their true potential.
Despite the work of recent decades, only a quarter of GCSE pupils do triple science, whilst only a quarter doing STEM subjects experience science practicals in school. The geek effect? The average GCSE grade for students going on to study STEM at A-level is a 7+, which immediately re-enforces the view that science is for the clever few, and suggests schools are not focusing on opportunities for all. STEM for girls? A single female scientist is mentioned in the secondary STEM curriculum, compared with 20 references for male scientists. Where are all the trailblazing female scientists? More importantly, with a lack of female role models visible in the classroom, how can we expect girls to be inspired to embark on a science career?
Students had the opportunity to outline their research in the poster sessions. Credit: IRIS.
So what is the solution?
Well, to stop young people being pushed out of science even before they have had a chance to think about the possibilities, IRIS believes the way in which STEM subjects are taught in schools requires an overhaul. A major one. In short, there is a need for a research and innovation approach to STEM learning. With a decade of experience behind it, IRIS has seen that doing real, up-to-the-minute research, as well as developing real-world scientific applications, has a transformative impact on science uptake for all pupils. With IRIS’s intervention, schools, teachers and, most importantly, pupils have seen a transformation in the way STEM subjects are taught, providing clear evidence that a focus on real research has the power to inspire in a way that traditional teaching methods do not. Key findings from the IRIS report suggest the R&I approach prevented the decline of science capital, challenged negative stereotypes about who belongs in STEM, transformed young people’s understanding of STEM careers — particularly among girls, and empowered teachers to drive positive change across their schools.
It was fascinating to see students who studied the same projects discuss their findings. Credit: IRIS.
Inspiring future scientists
It was with this in mind that as ScienceVega editor, I decided to go to one of IRIS’s three science conferences this summer to see firsthand just how an R&I approach could inspire future scientists. Almost 1,000 pupils from around a hundred schools attended the events in Exeter, Manchester and London, which included student research presentations and poster sessions for the pupils, alongside researcher panel discussions and guest speakers.
In Manchester, the event that I attended, students came from as far away as Limavady in Northern Ireland as well as Cumbria, County Durham, Sheffield and Walsall. The research topics they had worked on over the course of the year (averaging out at about four to five hours a week, according to one student) included elephant migration, ionic fluids, the Higgs boson, environmental diversity in school settings and investigating cosmic phenomena using spectra from the Spitzer space telescope.
Most impressive was the fact that every student that spoke did so with a confidence and a knowledge that was breathtaking. Not only did numerous pupils go on stage to outline their projects, how they set about them and what their results were, as well as state how they would like to build upon the research findings they had from the year’s work, they also took questions which, in all cases, they answered coherently and concisely. To witness young people from such varied backgrounds discussing in front of a large audience, in most cases, extremely detailed research, was uplifting to say the least.
The questions that came from the floor during the stage presentations were always well thought out and pertinent. The confidence in the answers that came back was amazing to hear. Credit: IRIS.
The seeds of collaboration
The poster exhibitions provided an opportunity for teachers and students (and me) to discuss research undertaken at other schools and, again, the overarching impression was one of young people completely confident about their research and findings. Some of the most interesting discussions were between students from different schools that had done research on the same core topic. Anyone who has been to a science convention sees the way in which researchers working in the same field naturally migrate to each other. It is where the seeds of collaborations (often international) are sown and it is how science works in the modern world.
Science has the ability to cross borders and bypass politics. To be in a room where today’s young people were already having those conversations capped what was an amazing eye opener to the power of what IRIS is seeking to do. The overarching thought that I came away from the event was the need to make sure the IRIS approach becomes ever more well-known in the STEM education sector. Schools need to hear about the R&I approach and teachers need to get on board so that their students can come to a Manchester or an Exeter or a London or wherever a conference may take place next year and outline, with confidence, the results of their fantastic real-world research.
Perhaps the clearest memory I came away with was simply this; I felt as though I was witnessing some of the finest scientists of tomorrow taking their first steps on a career path that knows no bounds. If the UK is to become a ‘science superpower’, young and brilliant minds such as those I listened to will surely be at forefront of that movement. To continue the conveyor belt of excellent STEM students, more schools should look to the IRIS approach to help achieve that goal.
To quote another motto, this time ScienceVega’s: ‘Today’s science, tomorrow’s scientists’. The IRIS conference in Manchester could not have encapsulated that any more succinctly.
The link to the IRIS’s R&I Framework Project: Growing Research & Innovation in Schools can be found here.
Bessi, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.
