Greg Cooke

IncludeHer UK

The Absence of Women’s Scientific Contributions in Core UK Pre‑University Science Qualifications is a study by G. J. Cooke, S. B. White, S. Buttigieg, N. Lowson, S. Galaudage, A. Battisti, L. Kelsey, and K. Ross examining who is named in UK science education syllabi for students aged 14-18 (Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5). It extends the IncludeHer movement to the UK, systematically reviewing exam board specifications across England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland to ask: which named scientists appear in the curriculum, how often are they mentioned, and are they credited as a concept (for example, Newton's laws) or as a scientist (a named individual)? We also recorded the gender, nationality, and regional background of each named person.

A paper describing this work will be published in the British Educational Research Journal. The accompanying data and analysis code are openly available on GitHub.

Open the interactive explorer   (no install needed — works in any browser)

What we found

Across all exam boards surveyed, named scientists in UK science syllabi are overwhelmingly male. At GCSE / NQ5 level (ages 14–16), we identified 237 scientist mentions, of which only 1 credited a woman. At A-Level and Scottish Highers (ages 16–18), there were 498 mentions, with only 3 crediting women. Counting unique named individuals rather than total mentions, women account for fewer than 2% of scientists named at both key stages: 1 of 86 at KS4 (Rosalind Franklin) and 3 of 181 at KS5 (Rosalind Franklin, Inge Lehmann, and Marie Tharp). Across both key stages combined there are 226 unique named individuals, of whom only three are women.

Explore the data on this page

You can also filter by key stage, exam board, and chart type below. Hover over chart segments for counts and percentages, or click a segment to list every named scientist in that group. For the full-screen hosted app (shareable link), use the button above.

If you use this data or code, please cite the IncludeHer UK paper (submitted to the British Educational Research Journal; citation details to be added on publication).