University Silver Athena Swan application submitted

The University’s Silver Athena Swan application was submitted at the end of March 2022. The Athena Swan charter mark provides a framework for universities and academic departments to make improvements to gender equality.

This submission comprises an application which reviews our current position and progress made, alongside a five year action plan which sets out future activity.  We will find out if the application has been successful in June 2022.

Our last Athena Swan award was achieved in 2016. Since then, we have:

  • Achieved Athena Swan awards in all 12 academic Schools in our three Faculties – an improvement from awards held only in the Faculties of Health & Life Sciences and Science & Engineering in 2016.
  • Made improvements to Annual Review which has resulted in increased gender balance at senior grades (particularly the increase from 24% to 28% female professors). This shift has also positively impacted our leadership composition; doubling our female Heads of Department and meaning female membership of influential University committees has increased from 41% to 50%.
  • Embedded equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) considerations into our REF2021 processes which has resulted in the selection of 34% research impact case studies from women, which is representative of the eligible staff population and an increase compared to 21% in the previous REF.
  • Increased PDR completion rates for our early career research staff; from 44% to 82% female and 35% to 89% male between 2014 and 2020. This was achieved through increased communications and development of dedicated advice via our ‘Researcher Hub’ webpages.

New Action Plan

Although we can see that positive changes have taken place, there is still more progress to be made. Through staff consultation (staff surveys in 2019, 2020 and 2021) as well as dedicated Athena Swan consultation in 2021, a new five year action plan has been developed.  This consists of 27 actions with six priority areas:

  • Ensuring that staff undertaking Athena Swan work have a clear, consistent role description, suitable time allocation and recognition for this important work.
  • Increasing men’s participation in Athena Swan activity by offering additional gender equality specific development opportunities such as Male Allyship.
  • Continuing to address the University’s gender pay gap through further improvements to academic promotion processes and positive action used for recruitment to lower grades.
  • Reducing experiences of bullying and harassment and increasing support for staff who do experience this.
  • Providing support for staff and students experiencing domestic violence.
  • Developing a trans equality policy and processes to fully support our trans and non-binary staff and student community.

How staff can get involved

Staff are encouraged to support Athena Swan activity through the following routes:

  • As new policies and processes are developed through the Athena Swan action plan, we will be consulting staff and students on these through the Diversity & Equality consultation portal. Consultations will be advertised and all staff are welcome to contribute their views.
  • Each academic School or Institute has an Athena Swan lead; the majority of leads are women. We can all contribute to and benefit from gender equality work and any male staff who would like to get involved would be very welcome. If you would like to support your local Athena Swan activity, please contact the University’s Gender Equality Officer, Sally Middleton (sallyjm@liverpool.ac.uk) and she can put you in touch with your local group.
  • Take part in our extensive equality, diversity and inclusion training offer – details can be found here Training – Human Resources Intranet – University of Liverpool
  • Organise and attend gender equality related events. You can find details of events here Events – Human Resources – University of Liverpool and if you’d like to organise an event, please contact the Equality & Engagement team (equality@liverpool.ac.uk) for information on how we can support you.

For more information on Athena Swan, please contact Sally Middleton, Gender Equality Officer at sallyjm@liverpool.ac.uk