Athena SWAN results announced!

The results have been announced this morning and SAGES have been awarded a Silver Athena SWAN award!! Congratulations and thank you to everyone who worked so hard towards achieving this award. You made a difference!

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Ruth Gilligan, ECU’s Athena SWAN manager said:

We are delighted to announce the 84 successful awards today. It is the culmination of many months work for institutions and departments, and for ECU as well. We held 32 assessment panels over the course of 11 weeks, and would like to thank the 168 panelists from across the sector for taking part.

‘It is encouraging to see universities engaging with the Athena SWAN Charter across disciplines, and rolling out the benefits of this work to colleagues in professional and support roles. It is a pleasure to confer the first awards to applicants under the expanded criteria.

‘We have seen a slight decrease in the overall success rate of applications, 66% down from 70% in the previous round. We provide unsuccessful applicants with full feedback straight away, so they know which areas to prioritise and where they are doing well. The difference in success rates can be attributed to the lower success rate of applications using the new process. We are providing ongoing support for applicants in how to participate in the expanded charter, through materials and workshops.’

Congrats

 

Recipients of prestigious Athena SWAN award announced

The Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) have recently announced the institutions and departments which have received an Athena SWAN award (this recognises commitment to tackling gender inequality in higher education).

”Ninety-seven awards were given out in total, comprising ten awards at institutional level and 87 at departmental level. University College London and the University of Edinburgh were successful in attaining the Athena SWAN Silver award, bringing the total number of institutions with a Silver award to seven.

Seven institutions also received a Bronze award. They were: Bournemouth University, The British Antarctic Survey, Edge Hill University, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, The University of Huddersfield, University of Hull, and University of Northumbria at Newcastle. The University of York also retained its Bronze award.

Elsewhere, 61 university departments received or retained Bronze awards, 24 departments received or retained their Silver awards, and the Department of Chemistry at the University of York successfully renewed its Gold award.

In total, 139 Athena SWAN applications were submitted, meaning the 97 awards given out yielded a 70% success rate, which is consistent with previous award rounds (Nov 13 -71%, April 14 – 69%, Nov 14 – 73%).”

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‘Striking’ inequalities in higher education fuel gender pay gap

A new report highlighted yesterday by Jack Grove in the Times Higher indicates that ‘the UK’s female academics are paid £6,146 less on average than men, with lack of women in leadership and management roles a factor.’

‘Twice as many male academics as female scholars earn more than £50,000 a year, new figures on academia’s gender pay gap show.  Some 37,425 male academics are paid at least £50,000, compared with just 17,415 female academics – a ratio of more than two to one, according a new analysis of 2013-14 data by the Equality Challenge Unit.  It means that despite making up 55.4 per cent of the workforce, 68.2 per cent of higher earners in academia are men, says the ECU’s Equality in Higher Education: Statistical Report 2015, due to be published on 9 November……’

How are UK universities getting involved in HeForShe?

Gemma Tracey, Senior Policy Advisor at the Equality Challenge Unit has posted an article about the UN Women’s HeForShe campaign. UN Women is the UN organization dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. Both the University of Leicester and Oxford University are inolved in a pilot initiative to ‘drive change from the top.’

‘In 2014 UN Women launched HeForShe – their solidarity movement for gender equality – with the aim of “bring[ing] together one half of humanity in support of the other half of humanity, for the benefit of all.” The high profile launch by British actor Emma Watson encouraged men to pledge their commitment to HeForShe.’

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