This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

The leaders of one of the country’s most prestigious scientific institutes are under investigation following claims of bullying, mistreatment of staff and gender discrimination.

Complaints by 10 former and current staff members at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge focus on some of the centre’s most senior management, including the director, Sir Michael Stratton.

Allegations made by the scientists include:

Senior staff being mistreated and bullied.



Scientists being unilaterally pressured by management to leave the institute at short notice.

Failure to follow due process when grievances were raised.

These problems have disproportionately affected female staff.

The Wellcome Trust, Britain’s largest medical charity, confirmed the investigation was taking place but declined to provide further comment until it has concluded.

The case is the latest in a series of high-profile allegations of bullying in academia and raises awkward questions for the trust.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sir Michael Stratton, the director of the Wellcome Sanger Institute. Photograph: Philip Mynott/Wellcome Sanger Institute

In May, Wellcome unveiled a new anti-bullying policy, which would lead to scientists who have been sanctioned by their university or institution losing funding from the trust.

The charity, which spent more than £1bn on biomedical research last year, said it plans to punish institutions that fail to disclose details of misconduct or investigate allegations promptly.

However, those involved in the latest case allege that there was an entrenched culture of bullying and mistreatment at the Sanger Institute, Wellcome’s largest research centre.

Some of those at the institution have complained of a lack of due process in the removal of colleagues, noting that management has declared “the axe can fall at any time”. They claim junior colleagues have left their jobs almost immediately following meetings with HR, with some asked to sign confidentiality agreements. Others, including senior staff, have departed at very short notice.

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Some staff also alleged that Sanger resources, including core research grants, access to equipment and laboratory space, were being allocated inappropriately or unfairly.

The Guardian has learned that within about a year of being awarded its five-yearly core grant of more than £400m, the institute has lost or will be losing an estimated 25% of its faculty. Sanger has also lost its chief of scientific operations, chief of finance and head of HR.

“Many successful and high-profile scientists are reported to be in the category of leaving or have left the institute,” said one former staff member, who asked to remain anonymous.

It is, however, unclear from the institute’s website who they are. Eight are declared on the site, at least one high-profile former faculty member is not declared and a further seven are reported to be in the process of leaving or have already left the institute, but remain under “current faculty”, according to the scientist.

In response to an approach to Stratton for comment, a spokesperson said: “There is an independent investigation under way which will ensure full and proper exploration of these allegations. It would not be fair to anyone involved in this process to say more at this point.”

Sanger was established in 1992 and made the largest single contribution to the gold standard sequence of the human genome. It employs about 900 people working on the genetics of health and disease, and attracts leading scientists from across the world.



Stratton is an internationally renowned cancer scientist. In the 1990s, his team discovered the breast cancer mutation BRCA2 and he was among the first to begin a programme of research into gene-targeted therapies for cancer.

Concern has been raised recently about levels of bullying and harassment in academia after a spate of investigations at laboratories in the US and Germany.

Prof Nazneen Rahman, who resigned from her post at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) in London last month, became the first scientist to be sanctioned under anti-bullying rules introduced by the Wellcome Trust this year.

She was accused by former colleagues of “serious recurrent bullying and harassment” and creating an “intimidating and humiliating” working environment.

Rahman, who was awarded a CBE in 2016 for services to medical science, announced that she would step down as head of genetics and epidemiology at the ICR after an independent investigation into the claims. In response, the trust confirmed it would terminate or transfer what remained of £7.5m of funding that had been awarded to Rahman.