School of Social Sciences recognised for commitment to gender equality

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We are delighted to announce that the School of Social Sciences has been the first school in the Faculty of Humanities to be re-accredited with an Athena Swan Bronze Award for the period of 2022-2027. This demonstrates our continued commitment to progress and embeds equality, diversity, and inclusion in all that we do.

The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research. Established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment, the Charter is now being used across the globe to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.

The panel responsible for assessing our application recognised that we have made significant progress in addressing inequalities for both staff and students in our School. The School has now set itself the ambitious but achievable target of upgrading our accreditation to Silver within the next three years.,

Our School has made it a priority to consolidate and extend a culture of gender equality across all areas of our activity. Our Equality Diversity and Inclusion and Social Responsibility agendas are now embedded in our governance structures and significant resources have been invested to support our work in these areas.

Despite advances, we recognise the need to further improve the gender and ethnic makeup of our staff and student body. We will enhance the level of support we offer to female and BAME colleagues and students to reach their full potential, enable a greater proportion of female and BAME colleagues to reach the top ranks and pay grades, and a greater proportion of female and BAME students to achieve higher grades and improve their employment opportunities. We will also tackle intersectional sources of inequality based on gender, race, disability and/or sexuality.

Brian Heaphy, Head of School, said, “I am delighted that the School of Social Sciences has been awarded an extension of the Bronze Athena Swan. The current EDI team, led by Dimitris Papadimitriou, have done an excellent job in following up the commitments made by the previous schools, merging their plans, evaluating their achievements and working on a course of action that will form the basis of an application for a Silver award. The extension is recognition of the fact that our School takes EDI very seriously, and we need to continue to make progress in this area.”