Decolonising the curricula as a student-staff partnership

The sciences are often viewed as impartial and solely concerned with delivering objective facts. However, historical biases, particularly those rooted in Eurocentrism, have shaped the way research is funded, conducted, and shared. This has led to a cascading effect where these imbalances are reflected in educational content, influencing the development of future scientists. Consequently, higher education institutions, including the University of Glasgow, have made decolonising the curriculum a priority. This student-led partnership developed a framework to assess taught content for geographical, historical, and colonial bias/perspective. Taught material from third-year Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, and Genetics courses were examined. This revealed that approximately 92% of scientists discussed by name in lectures were from either North America or Europe. Author affiliations from references used in lectures and further reading were assessed and found to lack diversity and focus on the global North. To quantify this further, Citation Score Indexes (CSIs) were calculated, this matrix combined the author's country of affiliation with that country’s gross national income (GNI). This quantitative will allow changes in diversity to be measured over time and examine the impact of different interventions. Furthermore, the curricula review revealed that case studies were limited in scope and focused on Western populations highlighting the need for decolonisation efforts. Therefore, student partners identified opportunities to broaden the perspective of these case studies by incorporating a more global approach. This included integrating Indigenous knowledge on plant-derived medicines and including global contributions to biomolecular sciences, moving beyond the current focus on discoveries from the Global North. Next, we developed a workshop for undergraduate biomolecular science students, designed to encourage critical reflection on the sources of knowledge and expose the influence of colonialism in the field. The workshop received positive feedback, with students particularly enjoying the interactive elements, including quizzes hosted on Mentimeter. Notably, around 75% of participants agreed with the statement, "I enjoyed this being a student-led activity," underscoring the success of the partnership. This work represents early efforts to decolonise molecular bioscience curricula at the University of Glasgow. While the focus of the curricula review and workshop was on the life sciences, the frameworks developed here could be adaptable for other courses