Three Schools receive Athena SWAN award

Thursday, 28 April 2016

Three Schools from the University have been successful in receiving the Athena SWAN awards, given by the Equality Challenge Unit.

The School of Archaeology Geography and Environmental Sciences (SAGES) has won a silver award while the School of Chemistry, Food & Pharmacy (SCFP) and the School of Psychology & Clinical Language Sciences (SPCLS) have won bronze awards.

Athena SWAN was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to tackling gender inequality in higher education. It has traditionally covered science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) disciplines, but has been expanded to include arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law departments (AHSSBL) as well.

Applications from SAGES, SCFP and SPCLS were among 128 submitted to the Equality Challenge Unit. Only 84 applications were successful in receiving an award.

Ellie Highwood, Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, said the awards were a recognition of the hard work done by the Schools. “There is lot of good work being done across the campus to support women in science, engineering and technology. As the HE sector and indeed society as a whole pays more attention to gender equality, this recognition becomes harder to achieve and I thank the teams in all three Schools for their continued commitment and enthusiasm”.

She said the silver award to SAGES reflected the impact of innovative actions, such as a year-long School-wide “Gender in Fieldwork” project, on everyone in the School.

Ruth Gilligan, ECU’s Athena SWAN manager, said: “Our Athena SWAN Charter is a catalyst for real change within individual departments and whole institutions. It is important that we recognise the work already undertaken to support gender equality for staff in professional and support roles, and can inspire more to be done in the future”.