The study identifies two critical issues:

1. The dominant narrative that COVID-19 mitigations significantly narrowed the awarding gap risks obscuring other impacts of COVID-19 and new equality gaps for racially minoritised students.
2. The narrow focus on numerical awarding gaps risks overshadowing broader anti-racist interventions needed to dismantle systemic racism in higher education and to truly open career pathways for racially minoritised graduates.

Primarily, we ask did a ‘good’ degree outcome for racially minoritised graduates open careers in R&I, with sub-questions focusing on the destinations of graduates, the qualitative impact of a ‘good’ degree, and the role of COVID-19. We focus particularly on Black graduates, for whom the awarding gap is widest.

Our findings indicate that the narrowing of the awarding gap in 2020 and 2021 did not significantly open R&I careers for racial minorities. Black graduates, in particular, remained less likely to be in professional roles despite holding ‘good’
degrees; a situation pronounced in 2019/20, at the height of labour market uncertainty due to COVID-19.

The study also highlights that Black graduates from non-Russell Group institutions are more likely to be in non-professional roles, which tend not feed into R&I career pipelines. This is in a context where non-Russell Group institutions award the highest proportion of ‘good’ degrees, with racial minorities more likely to obtain a ‘good’ degree at a non-Russell group institution than at a Russell Group institution by an average of between 2-4%.

Additionally, we find the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant negative impact on the mental health and wellbeing of racially minoritised graduates, exacerbating existing inequalities. For Black students, particularly at Russell Group institutions where their fewer numbers tend to make them hypervisible, the pandemic years coincided with public reckoning with anti-Black racism, demanding these students absorb additional roles in providing care and support to peers. Such a detailed and nuanced picture of life in 2020 and 2021 for racial minorities, identifies the profound level of effort required to stand still, to neutralise the impact of COVID-19, and stay on track for a ‘good’ degree outcome. 

Our research illuminates an underacknowledged dilemma for Black students: to choose between a non-Russell Group institution, which improves one’s chances of a ‘good’ degree but with less chance of a professional role. Or, to attend a Russell Group institution, with a slightly lower chance of a ‘good’ degree outcome, and the likelihood of having to navigate hypervisibility and additional care roles with peers, but – if one secures a ‘good’ degree – with seemingly more opportunities for scholarships and professional roles, than non-Russell Group Black graduates. 

The study concludes that existing pipelines for R&I careers overly privilege Russell Group institutions and that a broader approach is needed to improve racial representation in R&I, one that specifically targets graduates of non-Russell Group institutions. It also emphasizes the need for institutional investment in mental health and wellbeing for racially minoritised students to address the compounded effects of COVID-19 and systemic racism, which precede the pandemic and was exacerbated by it. 

Overall, to open pathways to careers in R&I for racial minorities, the study calls for policy makers and higher education institutions to tackle racial inequity in higher education by going beyond numerical awarding gaps, which risk an artificial separation of a ‘good’ degree from the racialising conditions of higher education. Instead, the study advocates for broader measures of success that extend institutional regulatory obligations. Centring student-informed notions of a ‘good’ degree and achievement in higher education, is more likely to surface racial inequity and shift institutional responses in ways that reflect the realities of racially minoritised students succeeding in overwhelmingly white institutions.

Bath, S., Lewis, C. J., Mohamoud, S., Patel, K., Powell, S., and Williams, P. (2025) ‘Feeding the research and innovation pipeline: COVID-19 and closing the awarding gap’. UCL and Leading Routes.