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AI could ‘help democratise access to science careers’

Technology can be used to offer vital research experience and create inclusive curricula, according to physicist Jess Wade

Published on
October 22, 2025
Last updated
October 22, 2025
Scientist using phone to open laboratory door
Source: iStock/Eder Paisan

Artificial intelligence could be employed to improve access to higher education and subsequent careers in research and innovation, according to an influential physicist.

Jess Wade, assistant professor in functional materials at Imperial College London, said universities could use AI to give more students access to research experience, a key factor in whether they progress into R&I careers, and to establish more inclusive curricula.

Discussing the importance of “democratising access to learning” at the Reinventing Higher Education?conference, hosted by?IE University?and?Imperial, Wade pointed to the significant underrepresentation of black people and women in physics in the UK, with black people making up only 1.1 per cent of physics students and?women making up 24 per cent.

“This obviously influences who ends up becoming a professor, because if you start off with very small numbers, you end up with very small numbers,” said Wade, who is known for her project that aims to increase representation of female scientists on Wikipedia.

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Twelve per cent of UK physics professors are women while 0 per cent are black, she said, noting that very small populations of people are not reported for privacy reasons. “These statistics are absolutely terrible. Not only are we not supporting people to get in, we're also not supporting people throughout their career to be given these opportunities.”

At the undergraduate level, AI could also be employed to “help identify curriculum gaps”, Wade suggested. “If we look at our universities, we're not teaching enough about researchers from underrepresented groups. We’re not making our curricula inclusive and welcoming to everyone.”

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The technology could also be employed to offer more undergraduates access to research placements, she said, explaining, “The learning you get, the skills you get and the kind of professional development skills you get from participating in research early has a massive influence on the type of careers you can get afterwards.”

“They massively transform people's likelihood to become a researcher or an innovator,” she continued. “When you look at the types of people who choose to do PhDs or go into spinouts, so many of them have had a really transformative research experience during their undergraduate studies.”

“American universities know this,” Wade said, pointing to the research conducted by Caltech undergraduates as an example. However, she noted, “these are extraordinarily expensive schemes to run”.

While some existing schemes such as to students from underrepresented backgrounds, Wade said, she suggested that AI could be used to “give these very real research experiences at a much lower time cost and financial cost to undergraduates”.

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“I wonder whether AI could be a little bit useful in thinking, ‘How can we become innovators?’ without having the cost of running these really elaborate programmes, like Caltech,” she said.

emily.dixon@timeshighereducation.com

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