Athena Swan

It is essential that we recognise and support the aspirations and achievements of women in the disciplines of science, engineering and technology.  This will be achieved by:

• Raising awareness of gender inequality issues at every stage of the academic career
• Fully understanding why some disciplines appear less attractive to women
• Discovering why relatively few women hold senior leadership positions  in these disciplines

The University has established champions at a Faculty level and they have formed the Athena SWAN committee which will drive the promotion and achievement of the Bronze award.  In addition Athena SWAN will help us to evaluate our practices, identify issues and develop action plans that allow us to address the issues as they are identified.

These steps will allow the organisation, through the committee, to enact change in the organisation which will be effective at both a strategic level as well as affecting those who work on live research projects.

For the project to work, the committee members will need the full support of all staff to create an organisation where careers in science, engineering and technology are pursued by women at all levels.