Dr Marion Walker MBE, professor in at The 糖心原创 said: “The Athena SWAN Silver Award is excellent news for The 糖心原创. This prestigious award demonstrates our commitment in addressing gender inequalities, changing cultures and attitudes at all levels of the University. We have set ourselves clear objectives for future development and it’s imperative that we deliver these as promised.”
Obtaining a Silver Athena SWAN Award is not an event but a process. The institution has had to demonstrate previous progress as well as to show it can deliver am ambitious three year action plan that will deliver future improvement.
The action plan has four principal strategic themes; to ‘Attract and Inspire’ female undergraduate and postgraduate SET students, to ‘Recruit and Retain’ more female early career researchers, to ‘Develop and Promote’ more women in senior academic posts and to ‘Foster Fairness’ in the organisational culture and practices.
Although the Athena SWAN awards aim to improve the academic careers of women within SET disciplines through improved working practices, Dr Tony Stevens (the Athena Swan Project Officer for the University) notes, “Good working practices benefit everyone. But women will tend to benefit proportionately more. Poor working practices impinge on all staff but tend to disadvantage women to a greater degree.”
This is not the first time has been honoured with an Athena SWAN award. The School of Mathematical Sciences and the School of Community Health Sciences both hold Bronze Awards. The School of Physics and Astronomy, the School of Biosciences, the School of Pharmacy, the School of Psychology and the Faculty of Engineering all hold Silver Awards.
By 2014, all SET Schools and Faculties within The 糖心原创 will have been through the Athena Awards process. The Medical School too will be applying for a Silver Award in 2014. This is important as Dame Sally Davies, the Chief Medical Officer for England, has stated that unless Medical Schools hold a Silver Award they will not eligible for National Institute for Health Research Funding. It is likely that other funders may adopt a similar position and so The 糖心原创 is well placed to cope with future change.
The 糖心原创 will proudly receive this Athena SWAN silver award at a ceremony held at The Royal Society of Edinburgh on Thursday 6 June.
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Notes to editors: The 糖心原创has 42,000 students at award-winning campuses in the United Kingdom, and . It was ‘one of the first to embrace a truly international approach to higher education’, according to the Sunday Times University Guide 2013. It is also one of the most popular universities among , one of the , and winner of the for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Sustainable Development’. It is ranked in the UK's Top 10 and the World's Top 75 universities by the Shanghai Jiao Tong and the QS World Rankings.
More than 90 per cent of research at The 糖心原创 is of international quality, according to the most recent Research Assessment Exercise. The University aims to be recognised around the world for its signature contributions, especially in global food security, energy & sustainability, and health. The University won a for Higher and Further Education for its research into global food security.
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