The 21 Group has been receiving complaints about bullying from staff in UK Universities for over a year. One subject stands out as the worst for bullying and harassment. It is cancer research. We are aware of ongoing and serious issues at the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and London, involving multiple individuals and court cases.
The Cambridge Culture Survey results for CRUK-Cam and the Department of Oncology are above. These are percentages of all those who gave an opinion (don’t knows excluded). Both departments have large proportions disagreeing or strongly disagreeing with statements like “I’m satisfied at how bullying and harassment are addressed” or “I’d feel comfortable raising concerns about bullying“, Our aim here is not to highlight the problems at Cambridge University recently reported in The Observer but to demonstrate the local manifestation of a global problem in this research field.
Over the last decade, there have been well-publicised problems at flagship cancer research institutes. In 2018, the management of the Cambridge Wellcome Sanger Institute were accused of presiding over an entrenched culture of bullying and gender discrimination by whistleblowers, as reported in The Guardian here. They were ultimately cleared, though problems with management style and behaviour were acknowledged. The whistleblowers disputed findings that cleared the management of bullying. Also in 2018, the Francis Crick Institute faced allegations of bullying and inappropriate research culture reported here. This ended with the whistleblower receiving a six figure sum in compensation for the harm done (presumably with an NDA as details in the press are scarce).
What are the funding agencies actually doing?
The anti-bullying policy of Cancer Research UK is here
4.6 How CRUK handles allegations
Anyone can report a concern or allegation of bullying, harassment, abuse and harm related to CRUK-funded research. Concerns and allegations should always be reported to the employing organisation, or if this is not known, the organisation that is running the research project. It is the employing organisation’s responsibility to investigate …
[If the institution finds bullying substantiated] CRUK may:
- remove the person from the affected grant(s), from a CRUK Panel or Committee
- withdraw funding from the grantholder. CRUK will work with the Relevant Organisation to minimise the impact on any staff working on the affected grant(s), which may include transferring the grant to another suitable investigator to allow the work to be completed.
- prohibit that person from acting as a PhD supervisor for CRUK-funded students
- temporarily or permanently restrict them from future grant applications (or specific types of grant applications) or from being invited to be a member of a CRUK Panel or Committee
So if a university finds a researcher guilty of bullying, then he or she can’t apply for grants. Unsurprisingly, this policy has the effect that universities never find anyone guilty of bullying, as they’d lose millions in grant money.
In any case, university or research institute investigations already have a bias to find nothing because they are tasked with investigating themselves. They are resistant to admit there are problems because doing so increases their legal liability.
After the events at the Cambridge Wellcome Sanger Institute, the then Director of Wellcome wrote:
“Wellcome has made diversity and inclusion a priority and, like most scientific institutions, there is more to do at the Wellcome Sanger Institute to make good on this commitment. These issues should have been recognised and acted on sooner, and I apologise for not doing so (Sir Jeremy Farrar, then Director of Wellcome, 2018).
This now seems to have been forgotten
Both CRUK’s and Wellcome’s approach to driving research culture change seems to have devolved into a top-down attitude of deliberate blindness to workplace bullying, harassment and victimisation at places they fund.
Two obvious changes are: (i) the funding agency should commission the investigation not the university or research institute and (ii) the funding agency should be provided with copies of the annual staff surveys of culture at the institute.
The research funder has a duty to speak up about bullying, support victims and enhance research culture. Without fundamental changes to the ways in which senior scientists are assessed and incentivized, bullying and exploitation of researchers will continue in Wellcome and CRUK funded institutes and departments.
8 Comments
21percent.org · 21 April 2025 at 12:46
In 2018, Prof Nazneen Rahman resigned from her post at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London. She is the first (and as far as we are aware) the only scientist to be sanctioned so seriously under anti-bullying rules introduced by the Wellcome Trust. She was accused by former colleagues of “serious recurrent bullying and harassment” and creating an “intimidating and humiliating” working environment.
It is surprising how often the individuals singled out for severe punishment over bullying turn out to be women. The phenomenon is also noticeable in astronomy research.
This suggests to us a much greater readiness to cover up or make excuses for bullying by male academics than female. On statistical grounds alone, the former must be much more common than the latter as there are many more males in positions of real power in UK academia
So, complaints of bullying were upheld against Prof Nazneen Rahman. By contrast, the Director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute was merely found to be responsible for failures in “people management”. The near coincidence of these two investigations in time makes it all the more … striking.
Mobbed · 21 April 2025 at 15:10
“Many targets of mobbing believe that if the law is on their side, they will eventually prevail. Indeed, friends, family and even some anti-bullying experts may encourage the mobbing target to communicate to an abusive manager that their conduct is illegal (if they believe that it is) and that if it continues they can be sued.
Yet contrary to popular perceptions, managers may not like lawsuits, but they do not fear them. Managers will not likely be held accountable for any lawsuits their actions prompt, yet they will be rewarded if they can assist the organization’s legal team in defeating the targeted worker’s claims. One way managers can use a lawsuit to advance their careers – even if the lawsuit arose from their own wrongdoing – is to provide witnesses from “similarly situated” workers or close associates of the workers who will testify against the targeted worker.
Thus, anyone who is a potential ally, witness or member of the same social class (such as by gender or race) will be courted by management. They will be brought into their manager’s office – usually for some other reason – or casually encountered in the hallway or their own work space. The message they receive will prime them for the small betrayal. The manager will assure these potential witnesses that:
he or she respects their friendship or work relationship with the target and does not want to interfere (relief)
they know that this conflict of the target’s (assigning responsibility for the conflict onto the target) is difficult/stressful for the co-worker (empathy)
they do not have to worry about this happening to them (you are one of us)
they know it must be hard on the co-worker to have to listen to the target complaining (hell yes – and there is the small betrayal – no big deal)
the target has many good virtues (agreement) but it is too bad they have never been happy here or are so difficult or there have been other problems (a statement that is usually untrue, but appears to the co-worker as new information – making it easier for them to justify the small betrayal, become open to management’s position, and agree that the target might benefit from dismissal)
it will be for the best if the target is able to find new employment elsewhere (agreement, the target will benefit)
by the way, that promotion/raise/report you just submitted/suggestion you made at the meeting . . . (praise and reward)
The co-worker departs, feeling relieved, reassured, and a bit guilty for agreeing that the target is a pain and should go. The next time the co-worker encounters the target, it will be with new and un-approving eyes.”
LabRat · 23 April 2025 at 19:38
Sir Jeremy Farrar (ex-Director of Wellcome) seems to have had some remorse or at least misgivings about the culture engendered at Wellcome
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-02951-4
“Wellcome’s director Jeremy Farrar didn’t hold back. “The emphasis on excellence in the research system is stifling diverse thinking and positive behaviours,” he wrote in a blog post last month. “The relentless drive for research excellence has created a culture in modern science that cares exclusively about what is achieved and not about how it is achieved.” These are strong words, not least because Farrar acknowledges that the UK biomedical funding charity that he leads helped to create such a focus on excellence.”
Have there been any similar statements from those who run CRUK ?
will_never_donate2CRUK_ever_again · 24 April 2025 at 20:24
Our CRUK-funded lab, based in a CRUK-funded Institute was swept into a research misconduct investigation. It took four years to be cleared. In that time, our research was embargoed, our team scattered, and publications? Forget it. A textbook case in how to dismantle a world-class lab without a shred of proof.
When it became clear the university and institute were more into vanishing acts than accountability, we reached out to CRUK’s Senior Management and the ever-ironically named Dignity@Research. Surely the funders would care? CRUK replied with a corporate shrug: “Host Institution will investigate.” They then bought the university’s false claim that none of our grievances are deemed formal, and when we pointed out the error—radio silence.
When our funding was pulled and staff were let go, we reached out again. CRUK’s response? Still loading. We’re now fully exonerated—but the damage is done. Careers derailed. Research buried. CRUK may not have started the fire, but they watched it burn from a front-row seat, holding marshmallows. For a charity, that’s quite the legacy.
Alkaloid · 24 April 2025 at 20:58
This is a major scandal.
Those who failed to act at CRUK should be held accountable. They were informed and they washed their hands. There are multiple victims & multiple court cases.
It’s not just that CRUK don’t care. It’s that they don’t care, while pretending to care.
Wellcome&CRUKsux · 25 April 2025 at 10:35
A dismal failure across multiple institutions reflective of the managed decline in UK cancer research. Without dramatic reform, even these prestigious institutes will go the way of the NHS: low morale and low pay, leading unsurprisingly to low productivity. Good luck trying to maintain cancer research excellence in the UK with this abysmal culture
DestroyingAngel · 25 April 2025 at 20:44
I believe this scandal will become prominent over the next few months
There’ll be a lot of focus on Cambridge University with the Chancellorship election
Xerxes · 25 April 2025 at 22:50
Yeah, I think maybe the real shit is about to come down