School of Life Sciences Athena SWAN Bronze award application – April 2016
Athena SWAN is a gender equality charter and the School of Life Sciences (SLS) recognises the principles of the charter. The School is committed to develop good practice in these principles from which all staff and students can benefit. Reflection on practices and culture associated with School of Life Sciences has been on-going since the inception of the School in 2012. Associated with this self-assessment, a number of changes in policy have taken place, while gender equality has been a key value on the agenda. The School is continuing to work towards achieving a Bronze award to demonstrate its actions and commitment to the Athena SWAN principles.
As part of the application the Athena SWAN Self-assessment Committee has to review the School’s progress in respect of the commitments, highlight areas for improvement and make suggestions of how actions could be made even more effective. Part of the review is based on a staff culture survey that is conducted annually and specific to the SLS to monitor shift in attitudes and culture within the School.
Membership to the Self-assessment Committee also has to be reviewed annually. The members of the Committee for the SLS Athena SWAN Bronze award application in April 2016 were selected to represent faculty and research staff in early-, mid- and senior career level with a mix of personal circumstances and experience. The restructured Committee was appointed in November 2015 with the following members:
Chair: Dr Lisa Collins (Reader)
Members: Dr Libby John (Head of School), Prof Stuart Humphries (Professor), Dr Paul Eady (Reader), Dr Michael Christie (Reader), Dr Anna Wilkinson (Senior lecturer), Dr Sheena Cotter (Senior lecturer), Dr Neil Holden (Senior lecturer), Dr Andre Moura (Lecturer), Dr Timea Palmai-Pallag (Post-doctoral fellow), Graziella Iossa (Research associate), Dr Oscar Guadayol Roig (Research assistant), Mr Daniel Wilson (Senior technician), Ms Suzannah Rollitt (Senior administrator/ PA) and Miss Sarah Reaney (PhD student).
Focus groups have been set up to analyse different issues within the School in relation to different elements of the report. The tasks of the focus groups are:
- Dissemination and subsequent analysis of school staff culture survey
- Collect and analyse data reflecting gender equality and diversity within the School of Life Sciences including workload data and committee membership data
- Organising and hosting focus group discussions with the postgraduate, post-doctoral, academic and support staff in the School to disseminate previous actions and develop further actions
- Generate a School of Life Sciences Athens Swan Blog in order to report progress of the application procedure and to invite feed-back, comments or suggestions for action from the academic community
The Self –assessment Committee will meet on a monthly basis to discuss actions.
School of Life Sciences Staff Survey – 2016
The Staff Survey is an important part of the School of Life Sciences Athena SWAN Award application. The Survey is anonymous and the questions have been chosen to provide valuable information to identify areas where the School has to develop strategies for key interventions and review effect of actions has been implemented following the Survey in 2015. To construct a strong action plan for a successful Award application, we greatly depend on an excellent staff response rate in January 2016 when the Staff Survey is launched.
School of Life Sciences Athena SWAN award application – April 2015
The University of Lincoln became a proud member of the Athena SWAN Charter receiving the Bronze Award in Autumn 2014. Now that we have achieved an institutional Bronze award, it is possible for individual Schools to apply for awards.
The School of Life Sciences identifies with the ideology that research in STEMM can only achieve its full potential if it can benefit from the talents of the whole population. The School of Life Sciences is determined to achieve Athena SWAN recognition and is aiming to make its application to Athena SWAN in April 2015. This represents a valuable opportunity to take stock of what the School is already doing to support women’s career development since it’s foundation at 2012 and to consider areas for improvement imperative to achieve even greater progress towards gender equality for all career levels. In order to prepare and submit a strong application, the School has set up a Self-assessment Team representing both genders across a broad range of academic career stages.
School of Life Sciences Athena SWAN Self-assessment Team
The Self-assessment Team was appointed in March 2014 with the following members:
Chair: Dr Lisa Collins (Reader)
Members: Dr Libby John (Head of School), Prof. Daniel Mills (Prof of Veterinary Behavioural Medicine), Dr Lisa Collins (Reader), Dr Ron Dixon (Reader), Dr Paul Eady (Reader), Dr Carol Rea (Principal Lecturer), Dr Timothy Bates (Senior Lecturer), Dr Anna Wilkinson (Senior Lecturer), Dr Helen Zulch (Senior Lecturer), Dr Andre Moura (Lecturer), Dr Timea Palmai-Pallag (Research Fellow), Dr Isabella Merola (Research Fellow), Miss Suzannah Rollit (Senior Administrator/PA).
Within the Self-assessment Team three focus groups were set up to conduct the following tasks:
- Collect and analyse data reflecting gender equality and diversity within the School of Life Sciences
- Developing Staff Survey to identify positive and negative aspects of the School’s practices
- Collect case studies to evidence effective action
- Develop an action plan with commitment to progress on developing good practice in the highlighted areas
- Generate a School of Life Sciences Athens Swan Blog in order to report progress of the application procedure and to invite feed-back, comments or suggestions for action from the academic community.
School of Life Sciences Staff Survey – 2015
The Staff Survey is an important part of the School of Life Sciences Athens SWAN Award application. The Survey is anonymous and the questions have been chosen to provide valuable information to identify areas where the School has to develop strategies for key interventions. To construct a strong action plan for a successful Award application, we greatly depend on an excellent staff response rate in January 2015 when the Staff Survey is launched.