Gender Equality at UEL – Have your say!

Let us know what you think about gender equality at UEL by spending 5-10 minutes to complete our Gender Equality Survey (follow link to survey).

Who should complete this survey?

ALL staff should complete this survey – all academics, all professional and support staff, all genders.

Why is this important?

It is important for us to understand the experience of ALL staff at UEL in relation to gender (including for example working culture and career progression) and what, if any, improvements are needed.

The feedback from this survey will help:

• to measure the impact of our actions to date
• to inform our planning and approach to improving gender equality generally
• to inform our Athena SWAN application specifically

What is Athena SWAN and what does it have to do with gender equality?

Athena SWAN is a charter mark which recognises work undertaken to improve gender equality in ALL academic disciplines as well as for professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. It covers gender more broadly and does not focus only on the under representation of women.

Work towards the charter mark has the potential to act as a catalyst for cultural change; to strengthen our equality agenda and improve the working environment for all.

You said, we did

Our last gender equality survey provided insight on issues important to staff which we were able to use to start work on a number of areas, including:

• The Athena SWAN mentoring programme was piloted this academic year and we are now recruiting for 2016/2017
• Work to increase the visibility of female role models, for example through case studies
• Results of the survey were able to inform the launch of UEL’s Women’s network which has held a number of events during the year and continues to grow
• Feedback on specific issues were able to inform our Athena SWAN action plan, including for example on the workload allocation system.

What are we currently working on?

UEL’s recent application for bronze Athena SWAN charter award was unsuccessful. However, recognition for the achievements to date was encouraging and the feedback useful on how we can more effectively embed Athena SWAN and gender equality into our day to day work. This has provided us with the impetus to look afresh at gender equality across the institution and we have started planning our re-application.

Further details on Athena SWAN work at UEL can be found on the Athena SWAN pages of the intranet.