Award for our work on gender equality

Our Athena SWAN Bronze Award is being renewed thanks to our continuing work to promote gender equality at Essex.

Established by the Equality Challenge Unit, the Athena SWAN charter recognises and celebrates good practice in advancing gender equality across the UK.

The Athena SWAN Bronze Award recognises Essex for having a “solid foundation for eliminating gender bias and developing an inclusive culture that values all staff”.

Recognition for our work

Head of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Karen Bush, said: “We’re delighted all our work to promote gender equality has been recognised with this Bronze Award.

“We’ll receive feedback in June which will highlight our strengths and weaknesses and enable us to identify further steps we can take to make our culture more inclusive."

Future plans to promote equality

Actions we are committed to taking include:

• Advertising all posts as being suitable for part-time work/job share unless a case can be made for not doing so
• Examining the reasons for the gender pay gap in favour of women at Grade 4
• Encouraging all Heads of Departments to schedule their key departmental meetings between 10am and 3pm
• Continuing to promote a flexible working culture

Our progress towards gender equality

Essex achieved a Bronze Athena SWAN Award in 2013 and a Gender Equality Mark in April 2014.

Our School of Health and Social Care (previously Health and Human Sciences) holds a Silver Award, our School of Biological Sciences, Department of History and Department of Psychology hold Bronze Awards.

All departments are expected to apply for an award by the end of the academic year 2019-20.

We'll receive our Bronze Award at a special ceremony to be held at Swansea University on 16 July 2018.