Anglia Ruskin University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering has received an Athena Swan Silver Award, recognising the work being done to promote gender equality amongst its students and staff.
The Athena Swan Charter is a framework used across the world to support and transform gender equality within Higher Education (HE) and research.
The Athena Swan Silver Award represents a significant milestone in the Faculty’s equality, diversity and inclusion journey across a range of STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects.
Conferred for five years, the award recognises the Faculty’s achievements in addressing key priorities such as gender balance in staff and student numbers, and gender equity in career progression.
The awarding panel highlighted the Faculty’s job share scheme for leadership roles and its promotion clubs, providing peer support, as examples of good practice.
The Faculty’s student initiatives include ARU’s Women in Engineering programme and the fully-funded places offered to international female masters students, as part of the British Council’s Women in Stem scholarship scheme.
The Faculty’s application was led by Dr Claudia Wascher, Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences. Dr Wascher said: “I am incredibly proud that our work over the past few years has been recognised with this award. It reflects the ambition, passion and perseverance of colleagues in the Faculty to address equality issues.”
Professor Laurie Butler, Pro Vice Chancellor of ARU and Dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, said: “This is a real milestone for the Faculty of Science and Engineering and recognition of many years of hard work by staff. I’m extremely proud of our unwavering determination to tackle gender inequality in higher education and research.”
