Male, pale and stale university professors are to be given “reverse mentors” to teach them about unconscious bias, under a new Government funded scheme.

Under the project, white men in senior academic posts will be assigned a junior female colleague from an ethnic minority as a mentor.

Prof John Rowe, who is overseeing the project at Birmingham University, said he hoped the scheme will allow eminent professors to confront their own biases and leave them “feeling quite uncomfortable”.

“What is understood about unconscious bias is that we have all got it, but the more you learn about it and become conscious of it, the more you can act,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

“While it is well known and obvious that women and minority groups suffer setbacks to their career progression no one really understands why.

“It’s not as if there is any overt prejudice – it is something to do with the way the system is or the way it has evolved and we needed to find out why.”

The mentor scheme is one element of a broader project aimed at challenging bias, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s (EPSRC).