Athena SWAN
The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering was awarded an Athena SWAN bronze award in May 2018.
The Athena SWAN Charter was established by the Equality Challenge Unit to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine in higher education and research. In May 2015 the charter was expanded to include other disciplines, and to address gender equality issues for women and men, across all staff and students.
Following College staff surveys and Department focus groups in 2015 we found we needed to better understand and address staff concerns particularly in relation to gender, recognising how practices and policies can impact men and women’s careers differently.
The Department Management Committee targeted three actions following this feedback
- improve the understanding and completion rates of Personal Review and Development Plans (PRDP)
- change academic recruitment practices to ensure gender neutrality
- introduce new training initiatives to address bullying, harassment and victimisation and promote the Have Your Say campaign and anti-bullying training in the department.
We formed our Athena SWAN Self-evaluation Team (now the Equality, Diversity and Culture Committee), including members of every level of staff and students in the department. The members have a range of cultural experience, family/caring responsibilities and management/leadership roles both in the college and externally.
The committee will continue to review and assess our current practices, monitor our action plan and work together to achieve our goals for equality in representation, progression and success for all.
OUR ATHENA SWAN ACTION PLAN
To ensure that we have full equality of opportunity for female and male staff and students, over the next four years we will
- monitor staff and student data, to ensure that any gender inequalities and unconscious biases are highlighted as early as possible
- promote the benefits of flexible working arrangements, support for maternity, paternity and adoptive leave, and career breaks
- improve our recruitment processes including advertising and shortlisting
- improve career development and promotion opportunities across all job families, ensuring that women do not experience barriers to success
- increase representation of women in the department, promote our women's society and invite women speakers, ensure more women are represented on department committees
- ensure the communication of our Athena SWAN goals and provide regular formal progress updates