Athena Swan UK is a sector-led charter that universities and research institutes voluntarily participate in to advance gender equity for staff and students.
Loughborough was one of the first signatories of the charter and was awarded a Bronze Award as an institution in 2009 which was renewed in 2012, 2014 and 2018.
The application took two years to complete. The School’s self-assessment team carried out staff and student consultations to identify challenges in promoting gender equity. The team assessed progress against the previous action plan and created an action plan for the next five years. 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.