Jess Cockell is Research Manager in the Kent Business School. Before that, she worked on the Athena SWAN initiative, both at the University of Kent (where she supported seven schools to achieve Athena SWAN awards) and as Equality Charters Officer at the Equality Challenge Unit, which runs Athena SWAN.
The Athena SWAN Awards recognise work undertaken to address gender inequality, in higher education and research institutions. The Charter also asks applicants to consider how being black and/or minority ethnic (BME) and a member of an under-represented gender (a female engineer or male nurse) affects the experiences and progression of staff and students.
I know that right now - across the country - people in
university departments and research institutes (RIs) are frantically writing
Athena SWAN applications and cobbling together crafting evidence based
action plans for the 30th November deadline.
Last month 85
self-assessment teams (SATs) heard that they’d successfully achieved awards, including the John Innes Centre, which was the first research institute to achieve a
gold award.
Now seems a good time to bring up to speed, researchers
who’re new to the initiative, or who’re wondering ‘what can I do?’ and ‘why
should I bother?’
