The University has won a national award for its commitment to advance the careers of women academics and promote equality and diversity.
The University’s faculties of Engineering and the Environment and Health Sciences received the Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network) Bronze award in recognition of building a solid foundation for eliminating gender bias and the development of an inclusive culture.
This success follows the award of four departmental accolades in April – the first for the University of Southampton. These new awards demonstrate the University’s continued commitment to improving equality for women in science and engineering, and ensuring that no area of its science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEMM) research is left behind.
The self-assessment teams put together these applications under the guidance of their chairs Dr Lindsay-Marie Armstrong (Engineering and the Environment) and Dr Cathy Bowen (Health Sciences).
Dr Bowen says: “I am really proud that we have been awarded a Bronze Athena SWAN departmental award. It is a great endorsement of our hard work in nurturing careers in Health Science and the values that we have. Our Athena SWAN committee worked fabulously to bring together our submission document and all are committed to progressing this agenda and our action plan through the next few years.”
Dr Armstrong says: “Receiving a Bronze award is a fantastic achievement for us. A tremendous amount of commitment went into the submission process by our committee, which lead to the development of a large number of actions aimed at promoting a continuous improvement for fairness for all. We look forward to implementing the action plan over the next few years and observing their effects, not only on the career progression for women, but also the overall atmosphere within our Faculty.”
Further academic units and faculties are already exploring the Athena SWAN guidance and considering their own applications in the next year.