As a Black academic with the privilege of working in higher education, I want to be able to share positive and affirming stories that will inspire future generations to consider graduate and doctoral studies in particular. But after working with my co-editors on the collective experiences of black doctoral students in the UK, I am not in a position to do so.

Listening, then reading, the experiences of some of the brightest and most talented people from our communities have been heartbreaking, inspiring, and filled me with anger. These students have faced skepticism about their ability to do a PhD, they have endured outright discrimination during interviews and selection processes, they have been marginalized in laboratories and lecture halls. Faced with these daunting challenges, they fought against all odds to survive in British academia.

Black students are being asked to bring plurality to the university, in ever-increasing numbers. But they do so under fundamentally unequal conditions. They pay the same fees but systematically obtain lower diplomas. They are less likely to access funding opportunities at postgraduate level, with the result that they enter academia later, if at all, and almost never reach the highest levels of management university. Structural racism is at the root of the problem, but it is the story of widening participation at undergraduate level and now, increasingly, at postgraduate level, which creates false expectations. This leads to further suffering, isolation, and disillusionment for Black people within the academy.

How can you thrive and thrive in a higher education system that devalues ​​and marginalizes your culture? How can we be expected to actively participate in a system where our spirituality cannot be authentically expressed? How can someone accustomed to community and collective support function successfully in an environment where individualism is valued and isolation strives to become the norm?

Ditch the Participation Narrative

Our book, The Black PhD Experience: Stories of Strength, Courage and Wisdom in British Academiareveals that Black students strive to participate and succeed in this often hostile environment, but it often comes at a heavy cost to their mental and physical health. The stories told show pockets of very good practice, where supportive supervisors, proactive mental health support, and Black support networks enable students to thrive. However, overall, black students succeed in spite of college rather than because of it.

To remedy this state of affairs and allow Black students to thrive rather than just survive, we need a reset. We need to abandon the talk of participation and focus on empowerment. We can no longer be expected to be grateful for the opportunity to study for a PhD – we need the power to shape and reimagine what happens. fair and transparent doctoral application and funded programs look like. We can’t just take part in another special project with three years of funding to expand opportunities for the nebulous community (underserved, BAME, black heritage, hard to reach).

Empowering Black Scholars

We need permanent centers of interdisciplinary Black research in all parts of the UK. These must be led by Black scholars committed to compassionate, community-oriented Black excellence. Black people must take positions of power and make long-term decisions regarding the future of Black people in higher education.

We know well what happens when we are asked to participate in another project. diversity initiative. We put all our energy into the offers, we get buy-in from the community, we appear on the brochures. Universities get money from our work and hire a few new black faces on short-term contracts. When the project ends, all black faces are let go and our participation is no longer required.

It is not possible to create a sustainable pipeline for Black academic success with this piecemeal approach to Black students and staff. In the wake of the heinous murder of George Floyd in 2020, Black students and our allies rose up and demanded change. Universities responded with words, projects and charters – and even more participation programs!

As our work with doctoral students reveals, this approach accumulates future pain for emerging black researcherswho are literally forced to participate in a scientific environment that does not value them and always insists that it is their way or the highway. In our book we call for greater transparency in the doctoral application process, more mental health support for students, better and more consistent training for supervisors as well as funding and to the recognition of black support groups. This is not a total solution, but we believe it would go some way towards enabling a strengthened black doctoral culture in UK higher education and ending the endless cycle of temporary initiatives.

The accounts detailed in The Black PhD Experience show that we are part of the academic landscape. The talent, tenacity and dynamism demonstrated by the contributors to this innovative work clearly demonstrate that Black doctoral students can be a tremendous asset to institutional success. We simply need to be acknowledged, not patronized, and empowered to thrive, not just survive.

William Ackah is Reader in Social Sciences and African Diaspora Studies at Birkbeck, University of London.

The Black PhD Experience: Stories of Strength, Courage and Wisdom in British Academia is published by Policy Press and edited by William Ackah, Jacqueline Darkwa, Wayne A. Mitchell, De-Shaine Murray, and Madina Wane, with 27 contributions from past, present, and future Black doctoral students.

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