Breaking through

For a long time, the term ‘networking’ would send a shudder down my spine. When I first became a journalist and started attending events, I would hide in the toilets in the breaks or rush off at the end to avoid having to make awkward small talk.

But over the past 10 years, I’ve come to understand that building networks is a fundamental – and dare I say it, enjoyable – part of what I do. Through networking I’ve been given interesting ideas and tips for stories, learned about new opportunities in the field and found people to collaborate with.

Most importantly, forming these connections with people has helped me to foster a sense of belonging – a feeling of ‘I deserve to be here’ (and not in the loos).

But not everyone gets a chance to feel this way in their chosen field. In ‘The health of chemistry across the pipeline’, we dug into the data to find out if the ‘health’ of chemistry had changed over the past 20 years since Harry Kroto’s warnings in 2004 about declining interest in the subject.

The field of chemistry has long been dominated by white, able-bodied, heterosexual men, and we were interested to see if the chemistry pipeline had become more diverse. The improvements are, sadly, marginal.

When I spoke to Robert Mokaya, provost and deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Sheffield and president-elect of the Royal Society of Chemistry, he told me that a particular challenge with chemistry is that it is very traditional and tightly networked.

Because of these networks and because academic chemistry is a relatively small group of people, for those on the outside, it can be particularly difficult to break through without support.

Some may even be turned off completely when they fail to see anyone like them within those networks.

In my case, I just needed the confidence to put myself out there but in chemistry this may not be enough.

Mokaya says that universities are now very aware that having an inclusive and diverse community is a positive thing, but we need more than awareness; if chemistry is going to thrive over the next 20 years it needs to be pulling people in, not pushing them out.

To do this, those comfortably inside the network need to be willing to offer a welcoming hand to those wanting to connect, as well as actively look to widen the network by reaching out to people from a diverse range of backgrounds and career levels. After all, there was once a time they were on the outside too.