The Lab Bench and the Quiet Spaces Between Us

I used to think STEM was a place where the rules were clean and measurable: a right answer, a replicable method, a neat graph that didn’t care who held the pipette. But over time, I learned that the most powerful variables in a lab aren’t always written in the protocol. Sometimes they’re spoken in passing—an offhand joke, a dismissive glance, a “you’re so articulate” that lands like a question mark. My theme, the lesson I keep returning to, is this: inclusion isn’t a poster on a corridor wall; it’s a daily practice that decides who gets to belong.

Where I Learned to Listen

My orientation to research culture began in fluorescent light. The lab was always humming—centrifuges, fume hoods, the low chorus of keyboards. I loved the feeling of unlocking something hidden inside a dataset. Yet, even as experiments progressed, I noticed how people moved through the space differently. Some spoke freely in meetings, taking up air without apology. Others—often new students, technicians, or anyone who didn’t fit the unspoken “default”—folded their ideas into silence.

In those early weeks, I didn’t have language for what I was seeing. I just felt it: a subtle sorting of who was assumed competent, who needed to prove it twice.

The Moment the Numbers Didn’t Explain

The complication arrived quietly, the way microaggressions often do. Not loud enough to report, but loud enough to remember. Someone mispronounced a colleague’s name for the fifth time and laughed it off. A teammate’s accessibility needs were treated like an inconvenience rather than a design requirement. I watched a technician’s expertise get brushed aside in favor of a more senior voice, even though the technician was the one who could actually make the equipment behave.

I told myself it was easier not to intervene. After all, I was studying science—not social dynamics. But the truth was, the lab’s culture was shaping our research just as much as our hypotheses were.

Discovering a Blueprint for Better

Then I read about a project that felt like a turning point: the John Innes Centre (JIC) and Newcastle University collaborating to create bespoke EDI training for STEM research and higher education environments. The modules—set for 2026 and supported by the UKRI EPSRC-funded EDI Hub+ Flexible Fund—will focus on the Equality Act, the impact of microaggressions, and practical active bystander guidance. What struck me most wasn’t the policy language. It was the promise of relevance: training designed for STEM spaces, not generic slides transplanted from somewhere else.

Dr Clare Stevenson described expanding EDI training beyond research institutes into higher education, building on JIC’s earlier neurodiversity e-learning that trained over 600 people and increased participants’ knowledge. I imagined that ripple effect: a lecture hall, a lab, a workshop—each one learning to name what had previously been “just how it is.”

Trying on Courage, One Choice at a Time

The events that followed were less dramatic than a movie scene, and more like slow rewiring. I began practicing small acts of intervention—asking, “What do you mean by that?” when a comment landed wrong. Making sure credit didn’t evaporate from the person who earned it. Checking in with classmates who looked like they were shrinking in meetings. Each moment felt awkward, like learning a new instrument: the hands know what to do only after repetition.

The concept of active bystander guidance—highlighted in the new JIC–Newcastle training—gave shape to what I’d been improvising. It suggested that inclusion can be trained like any technical skill: learn the tools, understand the impact, apply them under pressure.

What Changed in Me

My reflection is simple and uncomfortable: I used to equate neutrality with professionalism. Now I understand that staying silent often protects the status quo. EDI work isn’t a distraction from science; it is science—because it’s about evidence, systems, outcomes, and human wellbeing. It asks us to notice patterns, test interventions, and measure what improves.

A Culture You Can Feel

The resolution I hope for isn’t perfection. It’s momentum. The kind Professor Candy Rowe described—building safer, more inclusive research environments, not just for one institution but “for the sector.” With partners like the University of Essex, Quadram Institute, and Earlham Institute, this project feels like a shared commitment rather than a solitary effort.

I still love the certainty of a well-run experiment. But now I’m learning to value something else: a lab where people don’t brace themselves before speaking. Where belonging isn’t rationed. Where the brightest ideas aren’t filtered through who feels welcome enough to share them.

Reference
Source: John Innes Centre — “The John Innes Centre and Newcastle University to lead new STEM EDI training project.” https://www.jic.ac.uk/news/the-john-innes-centre-and-newcastle-university-to-lead-new-stem-edi-training-project/