STEM at AstraZeneca

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As a global, science-led biopharmaceutical company, we seek to leverage our reach, scale and expertise to effect real change in our communities and society. We believe that providing interested young people access to quality science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education supports scientific progress that will provide them equal opportunities to pursue their interests and explore potential careers in STEM fields.

We know that the young people of today will ultimately drive solutions for tomorrow’s challenges and transform the lives of millions of people worldwide. Specifically, our STEM programming is designed to support these four key pillars of our STEM strategy:

Make an impact in the local communities we serve
Support historically marginalised, under-resourced and underrepresented students in STEM
Engage employees through stimulating volunteering and mentorship opportunities
Serve as a resource for STEM education

Through global and national STEM education initiatives, we aim to cultivate an inclusive and equitable environment that will inspire the next generation of scientists, researchers and innovators.

Learn more about our initiatives in the 2022-2023 STEM Annual Report

US programming highlights

Empowering students through Learning Undefeated

Since 2018, we have partnered with Learning Undefeated, a non-profit organisation actively driving race and gender equality in STEM through experiential and deep-impact learning experiences for students from under-resourced communities, to deliver STEM programming lending career and skills education to empower students and teachers. Key programme elements include:

Drop Anywhere Labs: An award-winning, mobile, immersive STEM learning experience for middle and high school students. Developed with teachers and STEM industry experts, the labs’ interactive, game-based challenges encourage students to solve real, scientific problems while our volunteer employees provide students with guidance and knowledge. Through our partnership, we have been able to reach over 1.5 million students and 25,000 teachers across all 50 states.
Emerging Leaders in STEM Programme: As champions of inclusion and diversity, we work to amplify fair representation in everything we do as we know it impacts the success of tomorrow’s students. Through our support of this programme, high school and college women are paired with diverse professionals from STEM careers in Maryland and across the greater Washington, DC area to get direct experience working with STEM fields before entering the workforce.
Generation Health: A standards-aligned experimental learning resource for students in grades 6-8 and our employees were used as part of this program to take their industry knowledge into the classroom and inspire students to consider STEM careers in healthcare.

Engaging the local community with STEM partnerships

To support our goal of making STEM accessible to all, we partner with other national and global STEM education initiatives to develop future scientists, researchers and innovators. Near our Gaithersburg campus, we have partnered with local groups to realise this goal and help students beyond the classroom setting.

Our sponsorship of teams in FIRST LEGO League enables volunteers to mentor and coach middle school students in the fields of robotics and sustainable and renewable energy strategy, for them to identify potential technological solutions. Similarly, our ACT-SO volunteers engage in community-based events to demonstrate academic, scientific, and artistic achievement through competitions. With our support of Junior Achievement Finance Park, students learn the math needed to take control of their financial future using our volunteers’ experience, expertise and guidance so that they are inspired and prepared when the time comes to work.

To help students further their ambitions in STEM, we support other education programmes including sponsoring the UF Health Cancer Center’s Cancer Research Symposium for High School Students where students learn about varied STEM career paths from cancer researchers. We also partner with the University of Maryland’s CURE Scholars Program, which aims to empower students in Baltimore’s underserved and vulnerable communities to achieve academic and career success through mentoring, training and inspiring them to reach for rewarding futures in research, STEM or health care professions.

Summer RISE and Learning Undefeated’s Emerging Leaders in STEM

Over the summer, local students can come to our campus for an interactive learning experience incorporating groups of students from Learning Undefeated’s Emerging Leaders in STEM and Montgomery County Public Schools’ Summer RISE programmes. These programmes allow historically marginalised and underrepresented high school and early college students to gain hands-on job experiences in the pharmaceutical industry at our Gaithersburg campus. Features of the programme include job shadowing, one-on-one mentorship in various areas, presentations from our industry experts, networking, learning about careers in STEM fields and interactive science learning activities, such as the MXLab. Through our summer programmes, we are pursuing our ambition to provide enriching career-based learning experiences to foster interest in STEM and support students’ decision-making about life beyond high school.

UK programming highlights

Our STEM Outreach programme in the United Kingdom supports sending volunteers to support grassroots activities in local schools, including our school STEM learning network-based Enthuse Partnerships. Notably, in the UK, we developed a range of curriculum-based STEM resources focusing on children ages seven to 14 which are delivered using our innovative STEM Virtual World experience – a digital learning platform that transports students into our labs.

Since 2018, local students have also been invited to provide original artwork via the Science In Pictures project, where students are invited to create a picture that captures what science means to them. More recently, we have completed Science In Pictures II, which will be consolidated into a new piece of artwork that will welcome visitors to the Research and Development Centre and Corporate Headquarters on the Cambridge Biomedical Campus.

Cambridge, UK partnerships

We extend programming reach through partnerships with UK STEM organisations, societies and institutions, with a focus on reaching underrepresented populations and communities. Employee volunteers support our long-term partnerships with multiple Cambridge-based organisations near our R&D headquarters. Since 2015, we have been working with the Cambridge Science Centre to serve 60,000 children and young adults annually in their discovery of science, and since 2013 we have partnered with the Cambridge University Science Festival, providing outreach activities, panel sessions and sponsorship, as well as the Big Biology Day. We also support the Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology through an annual Medicine Makers challenge for 14-16 year-olds.

We are also growing the Active Science Programme, which mixes sport and science in partnership with local UK football (soccer) charities. Recently, we expanded beyond Cambridge with the Cambridge United Foundation to include Macclesfield and Everton football clubs, the programme that connects sports and our scientists to help bring science to life. Activities focus on putting scientific principles into action, where students take part in activities and can ask questions of the scientists. Over 1,000 pupils so far have participated with more to come in the future.

Sweden programming highlights

Our Sweden STEM programme supports community initiatives to interest young people in STEM. In collaboration with external partners, we support STEM students grades 4 - 9 with school visits, summer research school, a science festival and individualised mentoring to encourage pursuit of the study of natural sciences.

As a core tenant of our work in Sweden, we organise an annual summer research school together with the association “Unga Forskare,” for students aged 14-16. The programme serves to inspire interest in science and create long-term curiosity, give students a community where interest in science is encouraged, provide perspective on the importance of science in society and form a meeting place for school and professional life and show students other young role models in science within our company.

Boost4Life with mentor Sweden

Together with our Young Health Programme partner, Mentor Sweden, we are running a STEM project, Boost4Life, designed to support and inspire grade 9 youth through everyday conversations with adults about future thoughts and opportunities, especially in environments where role models are few and where many young adults lack self-confidence and trust in their future. In the programme, a number of school classes in Södertälje and Gothenburg meet volunteers from our team and staff from Mentor Sweden, and the programme includes visits to our facilities and meetings with other STEM partners working to increase interest in natural science subjects.

The goal is to help strengthen young people's faith in the future by arousing interest and curiosity for various education and career opportunities. The effect of the collaboration is evaluated over time to see the impact on the young people's commitment, motivation and self-esteem. The results can be used to further develop and expand the pilot project.