Opening doors: how to make work experience work for scientists and school students alike

When that work experience request lands in your inbox, the reaction is often the same: it means a whole week of supervision, risk assessments, safeguarding paperwork and insurance forms. When researchers are already managing experiments, deadlines, grant applications and teaching commitments, many simply don’t have the capacity to say “yes” to hosting a secondary school student, no matter how much they believe in supporting the next generation.

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The traditional model of work experience has inadvertently created inequality. Students with parents, relatives or family friends working in research could pick up the phone and secure a placement. Those without connections often face closed doors. The traditional model doesn’t just reflect existing inequality; it actively reproduces it, with each generation of scientists shaped largely by those who already knew someone in science.

A better way forward

A few years ago, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Southampton developed an approach to tackle these challenges. They created a smoother, more equitable system where any young person could access work experience opportunities, not just those with family links to research or healthcare.

LifeLab, which is a research-based educational project, has taken this further. Any young person who has been through one of our programmes can apply to us for their work experience week. The aim is both to make it easy for researchers to get involved, and to give students a more structured and varied experience than a single placement can offer.

What this means for researchers

Here’s how the model works:

• We handle all the administrative burden. LifeLab takes responsibility for risk assessments, insurance and safeguarding requirements. We manage all those time-consuming tasks that make offering work experience feel overwhelming.
• The researcher commits to only one or two days. Not a whole week. They can plan just one or two days of experience without it consuming their entire working week.
• The student gets so much more. While the researcher is hosting for only a day or two, the young person experiences five placements across their week. They might spend Monday in a cancer research lab, Tuesday crunching data with epidemiologists, Wednesday designing health communication materials, Thursday helping with a school visit at LifeLab, and Friday peering down microscopes.

What makes this work in practice

The model works because the burden on any individual researcher is kept small. LifeLab centralises the administration, so the paperwork that makes it easy to say “no” is handled before anyone is asked to open their door.

Coordinating students to move between departments across the week means that from each researcher’s perspective, it’s a manageable commitment with a clear start and end points. It also supports participation for students at the younger end of our 14- to 18-year-old target age bracket, who often miss out because people are risk averse and don’t have time or capacity to look after a younger teenager for a whole week.

There are things researchers get from this, too. Feedback collected at the end of each placement – what students found useful, what confused them, what they expected versus what they found – can be a useful mirror. Several researchers have used student questions to test whether their participant-facing materials make sense to a non-specialist audience. Others have found that explaining their work to a curious 15-year-old is unexpectedly clarifying.

Here are our top tips for making work experience work for everyone: 

• Consider whether you could offer one or two days, not a week. It’s enough to be meaningful without overwhelming your schedule.
• Show them the real work. Even everyday tasks feel exciting to a student.
• Let them talk to your colleagues, as conversations are often the most inspiring part.
• Think about how a young person’s insight could genuinely inform your work. They could create social media posts or read through information sheets.
• Be creative in planning meaningful activities for them (and you).
• Share your career story. Students value hearing the honest truth about the winding paths researchers take.
• Keep it relaxed – curiosity grows in friendly environments.
• Remember the impact. A single day can genuinely shape a young person’s future.

The bigger picture

One student captured the impact of the programme perfectly: “Honestly, I don’t want to leave. I’m so thankful and I’m now looking forward to coming here again one day to study and, hopefully, pursue a career here.”

By hosting a student for just one day, you’re providing real insight into research careers and opening doors for young people who might otherwise never access this world. You might even inspire them to study at university and pursue a future in research or healthcare.

Kathryn Woods-Townsend is a professor of science engagement and education and programme director of LifeLab, and Kate Bartlett is the developing talent lead of LifeLab; both are in the School of Healthcare Enterprise and Innovation at the University of Southampton.

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