Gender equality award

The School of Health Sciences, School of Art and School of Media have achieved Bronze awards from Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter in recognition of 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, as well as their practices, processes and cultures, in addition to identifying opportunities for developing an inclusive culture that values all staff. The Athena SWAN Award is valid for five years in which time a robust action plan will be implemented to further progress gender equality.

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.

Professor Tara Dean, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise), Chair of the Athena SWAN Steering Group and University of Brighton’s Gender Equality Champion said: “I am delighted that we have won further Bronze Athena SWAN awards in recognition of our ongoing commitment to gender equality. Our progress in this area has been significant. Early in 2017, only the Brighton and Sussex Medical School and the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences held Bronze Athena SWAN awards, now they both hold Silver awards and seven more Schools have achieved their Bronze awards. These highly prized awards recognise our commitment to promoting gender equality for all staff and students and I am grateful for the significant effort colleagues across the university are making in this area.”

Professor Paula Kersten, Head of School and Athena SWAN lead for the School of Health Sciences said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded a Bronze Athena SWAN award. I would like to express my gratitude to the Self-Assessment Team, and for the commitment and engagement of school staff and students in supporting our submission. Through collective focused action from across the School, we have seen considerable improvements in equality and inclusivity over the past few years, but more must be done. Our Athena SWAN action plan is designed to achieve maximum engagement from all staff, students and key committees. I look forward to the next few years when we will be driving this agenda forward.”

Dr Paula Hearsum, Athena SWAN lead for the School of Media, said: “We are delighted to have achieved our Bronze award. Huge thanks go to everyone who participates every day in supporting the commitment to advancing gender equality. The team involved in preparing the submission are particularly grateful for input from internal and external scrutineers; it is a collaborative success. More important than this award was the identification of both strengths and key initiatives that we must now progress.”

Professor Paul Sermon, Athena SWAN lead for the School of Art, said: “We are very happy to have achieved Athena SWAN Bronze Charter status; it was a significant group effort by the School of Art Self-Assessment Team. The application process enabled us to identify some of the strengths in our School, such as embedded flexible working and positive role models, and also gave us the opportunity to identify ongoing priorities, such as supporting female staff to progress into Professorships. We are looking forward to extending this work and progressing our actions in the next stage of our journey.”

For more information about the University of Brighton’s commitment to providing a fair environment with equality of opportunity, visit our Equality, diversity and inclusion section on our website.