More schools earn recognition for gender equality work
25 Jul 2018
The School of Environment, Education and Development and School of Chemistry have been recognised with Athena SWAN awards
The University has a long history of Athena SWAN awards recognising efforts to further gender equality; it has been 10 years since the University was first awarded Athena SWAN Bronze.
Since then, each of our Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine (STEMM) Schools have achieved awards based on their own self-assessment, action planning and implementation. In 2015 the Athena SWAN Charter expanded to include disciplines within our Faculty of Humanities – three of these Schools have now achieved Bronze-level awards; our most recent first-award recipient is the School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED).
Dr Susie Miles, who co-chairs SEED’s Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team with Head of School Administration, Rosie Williams, shared the team’s delight in receiving the Bronze Award in May (with very few suggestions for improvement). “The SAT team worked hard to gather evidence through an online Athena SWAN Staff Audit and collate statistics from across the School on all aspects of the staff and student experience from admissions to promotion processes.
"Staff awareness of this process has been raised by introducing Athena SWAN/Equality & Diversity as a standing item at all meetings. Now the work really starts! UG, PGT and PGR students will be joining the E&D committee in September, and the detailed Action Plan involves some small research projects addressing staff experiences of parental leave, and promotion experiences of those on non-standard career paths.”
Professor Martin Evans, Head of School, added: “This award recognises a lot of hard work by the team around issues of gender inequality for staff and students.
"The work done for the Bronze Award diagnoses areas where we need to do better and puts in place an action plan to address these. The award is not an end point but the beginning of more hard work across the School as we live up to our commitment to tackle these challenges.”
In addition to describing the impact of their 2013 action plan, the School of Chemistry SAT needed to demonstrate how their actions are supporting gender equality more broadly (not just ‘women in science’) and how they also aim to encourage and advance professional support services staff in order to retain their Silver Award.
Professor Eric McInnes, Chair of the School of Chemistry’s Self-Assessment Team commented: “Our aim is for the School to be as fair, open and friendly a place of work as possible, and everything follows from this.
"This has included monitoring data on (and identifying good practice in) recruitment, promotions, implementing family-friendly and flexible working policies; and engaging in positive Faculty initiatives, for example the Ollerenshaw fellowships. The single most important thing is engendering an inclusive and friendly culture in the School.”
This view is shared by Professor Nikolas Kaltsoyannis, Head of School: “A deep commitment to equality and diversity underpins all of the activities of the School of Chemistry.
"I am delighted that this has been deservedly recognised through the renewal of our Athena SWAN Silver Award".
To find out more about the Athena SWAN Charter, Awards and gender equality work at the University, please visit: