Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) is a quality charter mark framework and accreditation scheme established and managed by the UK Equality Challenge Unit (now part of

Advance HE Advance HE (formerly the Higher Education Academy) is a British charity and professional membership scheme promoting excellence in higher education. It advocates evidence-based teaching methods and awards fellowships as professional recogniti ...

) in 2005 that recognises and celebrates good practices in higher education and research institutions towards the advancement of

gender equality Gender equality, also known as sexual equality or equality of the sexes, is the state of equal ease of access to resources and opportunities regardless of gender, including economic participation and decision-making; and the state of valuing d ...

: representation, progression and success.

History

The Athena SWAN charter was established in 2005 and the first awards were conferred in 2006. The initial charter set out to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) institutions of higher education and research. In 2011, the UK Chief Medical Officer made it a requirement for academic departments applying for funding from the English National Institution of Health Research to hold the Athena SWAN silver award. In May 2015 the charter was expanded to include non-STEM departments including arts, humanities, social sciences, business, and law. Additionally, it expanded to cover additional communities including professional and support staff, technical staff, as well as trans staff and students. The first awards to non-STEM university departments were announced in April 2016. The new charter recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.

Award details

Members (universities) who sign up to the charter are expected to apply for an Athena SWAN award, at Bronze, Silver or Gold level. Each award is valid for four years under the post-2015 rules (three years where pre-2015 rules apply). They commit to adopting ten principles, which focus on promoting and supporting gender equality for women. These are: The ten principles have been criticised for failing to mention

collective bargaining Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The i ...

, for failing to address unconscious bias in paying "market" rates of pay, and failing to address the sex discrimination inherent in

child care Child care, otherwise known as day care, is the care and supervision of a child or multiple children at a time, whose ages range from two weeks of age to 18 years. Although most parents spend a significant amount of time caring for their child(r ...

rights to paid leave and the lasting negative impact this has on relative career advancement for those taking long maternity and short paternity leave. It has also been found that "there is no evidence that Athena SWAN membership and award level have any impact" on "the gender pay gap and the proportion of women in the top quartile of pay".F Amery, 'Why do UK universities have such large gender pay gaps?' (25 April 2019
Political Studies Association
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Reception

An exploratory study of women's and men's perceptions of Athena SWAN in 2017 was broadly positive, and highlighted the significance of government funding being linked to Athena SWAN awards; it also highlighted the limitations of the process to change long-standing and entrenched issues in society. A 2019 study of the university culture in medical and social sciences attributed a more positive culture in medical sciences to the widespread implementation of Athena SWAN gender equality action plans, linked to the funding incentives of the

National Institute for Health Research The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) is the British government’s major funder of clinical, public health, social care and translational research. With a budget of over £1.2 billion in 2020–21, its mission is to "impr ...

(NIHR). A 2020 study examining the effect of Athena SWAN funding incentives on women's research leadership in NIHR Biomedical Research Centres found a rise in the number of women in mid-level leadership positions and the proportion of funding going to women. According to empirical research carried out at the University of Bath, "there is no evidence that Athena SWAN membership and award level have any impact" on "the gender pay gap and the proportion of women in the top quartile of pay". Some commentators consider it to be largely window-dressing with little impact on lived experiences of women working in universities. The Athena SWAN charter is now used by some institutions in conjunction with the Race Equality charter and issues of gender and race inequality become conflated. In November 2021,

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

reported concerns about the Athena SWAN programme; barrister Naomi Cunningham described it as "totalitarian and unlawful" while historian

Selina Todd Selina Todd (born 1975) is an English historian and writer. From 2015, she has been Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Todd's research focuses on the history of the working-class, women and feminism in modern Britain. Since ...

, in a letter to the editor, said it "promotes a controversial view of sex and gender". It has been suggested that institutional commitment to the charter poses a risk to

academic freedom Academic freedom is a moral and legal concept expressing the conviction that the freedom of inquiry by faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy as well as the principles of academia, and that scholars should have freedom to teac ...

International

An Australian pilot of the Charter began in 2015 overseen by the Australian Academy of Science. In 2015 it also began being used in Irish higher education

References

External links