Life beyond the labs: Imparting wisdom, experience and the opportunities of a future in STEM
Imperial Enterprise
We bring businesses, researchers and students together in a flourishing entrepreneurial ecosystem.
By Dr Britany Clarke, Industry Partnerships and Commercialisation Officer (Faculty of Medicine)
During the recent school half term (13-17 Feb), we welcomed around two dozen students of black heritage to Imperial’s White City Campus to discover the range of opportunities and careers in STEMM areas outside of research, and what a STEMM degree can lead to.
From developing a passion for science at school through to completing a veterinary medicine biotechnology PhD and leading her own enterprises, Dr Britany Clarke has taken a varied STEM career path herself and moved into the professional services of technology transfer ?– helping ideas live and thrive in the world outside of the fundamental research arena. She shared her story and some of the opportunities available for students who are passionate about delivering impact through STEM.
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“The sky’s the limit” for these students
At Imperial College London’s STEM Futures 2023, I had the chance to present to students an overview of my career trajectory, exploring pivotal experiences, where I cultivated interests or chased opportunities to grow and generate tangible real-world impact through my passion for biotechnology.
These interests exist outside of just the lab work, and by sharing my personal perspective of scientific research, intellectual property, and commercial law, I explained ?how this led to the role I’m currently in here at Imperial Enterprise. It’s not one that many would think of when considering a career inspired by STEM education, but it’s a vital part of the incredibly complex, but significant, way in which ideas get deployed at scale to transform, improve and enhance the world around us.
They say “The sky is the limit” for a reason – and I hope I vested to this impressive group of early black STEM scholars, that with a growth-mindset they have the capability, every chance and right to access a deeply rewarding and impactful career in STEM.
The task: Learn my job and sell me a technology!
With Imperial Enterprise colleagues, I additionally co-led a session to deliver a birds-eye overview of technology transfer. We explained the nuts and bolts of our roles, ensuring in particular that we got across the importance of?how protecting a novel research invention via intellectual property is a crucial step towards generating new commercially available products, services, or enterprises such as start-ups which target alleviating problems in society.
To conclude the session, we challenged the students to innovate, collaborate, and create a group business pitch presentation for the Imperial-owned patent which interested them most (check out their options at the end of the blog).
There is something electric when you observe a group of curious young scientific minds, alert and applying their knowledge to overcome a new and ambitious intellectual creative process.?
As a scientist with a teaching background, it was a pleasure to see students working together to grasp new intellectual property or scientific concepts, as well as generate their business strategies alongside a jam-packed curricular timetable of activities across the week.
The business pitches from the students were delivered with technical consideration, confidence, and vision. Even as a participating judge posing challenging questions to the students, I quickly realised it was futile playing Simon Cowell; in a matter of days students were all experts in their respective fields – and underpinning this all was their courage to grow and learn together.
Being black and female in STEM: “Be the change you want to see in the world”
From an early age and even now after completing my doctoral research, I remain conscious of the lack of representation of people from black and minority ethnic communities in scientific fields.
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Whether that was being the only black female student in my A-level science classes or degrees at Russell Group Universities. Or the niche representation of black researchers in academia, technology transfer, law or business.
In the lack of specific STEM role models, I have always prescribed to an iconoclastic outlook; we cannot simply accept the way things are - but stay steadfast to creating the change we want to see in ourselves and the world. This is why I lead my own social enterprise, and eagerly support or recommend others volunteer their time to support impactful outreach programmes such as Imperial’s STEM Futures.
I believe exceptionalism cannot alone explain my progress in STEM. Fundamentally, my potential was reached by exploiting opportunities at each stage such as outreach programmes or utilising training, qualifications, and internships. This required the support of many, whether this was my encouraging family, teachers, university academic tutors or close work colleagues and friends made across my STEM journey.
All have played a significant role in seeing, cultivating, and fortifying my potential as a black STEM researcher. So, my final message to the students is remember you will have opportunities to re-invent who you are, and what science means to you countless times – and the world is open to you.
I hope the students learned that STEM careers do not only abode in the confines of the laboratory or academia, in fact infinite careers feed into and exist across the scientific research innovation cycle, and many more will eventualise with the accelerated development common across STEM disciplines.
All you must do is follow your interests, stay close to those that believe and cultivate your potential and do not forget to reach for the sky!
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Technologies that the students had to chose from: