Faculty of Medicine achieves Silver Athena SWAN award

Medicine joins Chemistry which received their Silver Athena Swan award earlier this year, and 22 other University departments who received or retained their Silver awards.

The accolade is awarded by the charity Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) which works to support equality and diversity in higher education institutions across the UK and in colleges in Scotland.

• In recent months the Faculty of Medicine has carried out a range of activities aimed at encouraging women into this field, including:
• Establishing a proactive approach to encourage applications for promotion from women
• Locally-delivered Faculty-based promotions workshops, improving promotion success rates for women
• Enhancement of the Faculty’s established maternity-support policy, to provide financial support for parental returners
• Co-funding a Springboard programme to enable more Medicine staff to attend
• The Dean’s appointed of a Diversity Champion for the Faculty
• Faculty HR briefings on “Flexible working” to raise awareness of our policies and how to apply them
• Negotiating access to on-site childcare facilities and Parents and Carers Network for University staff based at the hospital
• Establishing monthly lunchtime workshops to support staff: mindfulness and stress management; conversation cafes and others

Dean of Medicine, Professor Iain Cameron said: “I am delighted that the Faculty of Medicine has achieved Athena SWAN Silver Award. This recognises a collective effort over a number of years to demonstrate the Faculty’s commitment to equality and to valuing diversity.

“Congratulations to the team that developed the application, ably led by Professor Chris Stephens, and to colleagues across the Faculty who have played a key role in embedding a culture change in relation to equality and diversity.

“We can now aim for Gold status by driving continuous improvement to enhance career opportunities for all in medicine and related disciplines.”

Earlier this year new awards made by Athena SWAN to Southampton included Silver for Chemistry, new Bronze awards for Mathematical Sciences & Southampton Statistical Sciences Research Institute (S3RI) and Physics & Astronomy. In addition, the University’s Faculty of Health Sciences renewed its Bronze award.

To coincide with the results, Equality Challenge Unit is also announcing the criteria for the new Athena SWAN institutional Gold award. This is the first time a Gold standard has ever been developed for institutions, and will require participating universities to demonstrate how they are beacons of achievement and champions of gender equality.

Head of Equality Charters at Equality Challenge Unit, Sarah Dickinson, said: “In an ever changing higher education landscape, we realise that participating in the charter is a significant undertaking, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank and congratulate all those who participated for their demonstrable commitment to tackling gender inequality.

“We are also tremendously excited to announce the criteria for our institutional Gold award. This award takes the Athena SWAN charter to an exciting new level, and provides us with an opportunity to recognise the exemplars of the sector, and celebrate the achievements of those institutions leading the way in creating diverse and inclusive learning environments.”

The Faculty of Medicine will be presented with its Silver Athena SWAN award at a celebratory ceremony later in the year.