What is Athena SWAN?
Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research.
In May 2015 the charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), and in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. The charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.
The School of Social Sciences and Humanities’ Athena SWAN bronze award has recently been renewed.
The School’s Athena Swan action plan for the next five years can be read here.
The new action plan comprises seven priorities:
- Further embed Athena Swan within SSH by instituting clearer formal governance structures
- Reduce the difference between the length of time it takes for men and women to complete their doctoral research from 0.8 year to 0.4 year
- Improve the inclusion of trans, nonbinary, and gender-diverse staff and students
- Increase satisfaction amongst female staff for how bullying and harassment is addressed at School level
- Reduce gender inequalities on undergraduate taught student programmes, awards and graduate student outcomes
- Improve the experiences of career development, workload planning and recognition of PS Staff (88% of whom are women)
- Ensure academic staff have equitable and manageable workloads, with no gender differential for both workloaded and non-workloaded tasks
The School will be busy with achieving these important priorities over the next five years. The team would like to thank students and staff who supported this process by taking part in consultations and sharing the challenges they had been facing. This included important feedback about experiences with bullying and sensitive conversations about not always feeling acknowledged for one’s contributions within the School. The School is committed to addressing these and other issues raised during the consultations.
AdvanceHE, the institution responsible for assessing Athena SWAN applications, provided very positive feedback: “This is a strong Bronze renewal application which addresses three of the four criteria very well.” The adjudicating panel especially praised the School’s innovative approach to consultation via student co-produced projects about engagement and inclusion as an example of good practice. They also commended the practice of embedding of EDI objectives to staff yearly performance and development reviews; and the School’s active involvement in the creation of Torch, a University training programme for academic women, which is being redesigned for delivery in 2024/25.
