Brighton School of Business and Law has achieved Bronze awards from the Athena SWAN Charter, recognising their commitment to gender equality.

The Athena SWAN Charter seeks to promote gender equality, representation and progression within higher education and research. A Bronze award recognises the steps that the Schools have taken in assessing data trends, practices and processes and identifying opportunities for developing an inclusive culture that values all staff within a five-year action plan.

The University of Brighton has held an institutional Athena SWAN Bronze award since 2013. In 2016, it built on this achievement and became one of only a handful of higher education institutions nationally to achieve an institutional award under the new expanded charter. It is now preparing to submit for an institutional Silver award in the upcoming 2021 round. Following the latest awards round nine Schools hold Bronze awards and two Silver.

Professor Toni Hilton, Dean of School of Business and Law, said: “It is with great pride that I pass on more good news.  The school has achieved a Bronze Award from Athena SWAN.  This is excellent news for the school because it evidences our deep and enduring commitment to achieve gender equality throughout our activities. There is work still to be done, however, the Bronze award represents an accolade for our efforts because it evidences that we have robust and realistically achievable plans in place to pursue our goal gender balance across the staff and student experience from hiring to promotion and matriculation through to graduate outcomes and includes our engagement with practice.

“Our efforts in achieving this outcome were led by Dr. Francisca Farache who chaired the AS SAT group and who contributes to our school EDI Committee. So, a big, ‘thank you’ to Francisca and our SAT team and to everyone who contributed to the surveys and workshops that helped to shape our development plan for the next 5 years.”

Dr Francisca Farache, Athena SWAN lead for the School, said: “We are so happy to have achieved an Athena SWAN Bronze award. It was a great team effort by the School self-assessment team. I would like to thank staff and students for supporting our submission. The Athena SWAN panel recognised the commitment and ambition of the School in gender equality and unanimously commended the self-assessment team for a well-presented and justified application. In addition, the panel believes that our action plan could make real and tangible progress towards gender equality. We are really excited for this next step in our journey.”