The Department of Life Sciences currently holds the Athena SWAN Bronze Award which runs until November 2023, in recognition of our continued efforts in supporting women in Life Sciences.

Over the past few years, we have worked together to ensure that we have a culture that supports wellbeing, values good citizenship, and rewards both academic and professional excellence. Furthermore, we offer an outstanding environment for women to flourish personally and professionally, and we especially have been actively recruiting talented female staff members.

We continue to be committed to ensuring our staff and students are able to reach their full potential, regardless of their gender, age, and background.

Our objectives for the renewed award include the following.

  • Monitoring gender balance of staff and improving the recruitment process
  • Improving departmental appraisal and promotion processes
  • Continuing to promote and organise a wide range of social & networking events for all staff/students to increase engagement and increasing sense of belonging and involvement
  • Promoting female role models
  • Ensuring fair distribution of academic workloads

The Athena SWAN Charter was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research. It has since broadened to include other disciplines and to address gender equality issues for women and men across all staff working in HE.

Athena SWAN Bronze 2019