The Award particularly highlights the Department’s achievements in areas such as communication, flexible working, and the promotion of new senior women to both chair and professorship posts.
Dr Laura Winchester, Athena Swan lead for the Department of Psychiatry, said:
We are delighted with the renewal of our Silver Award. The changes we have made so far have had an incredibly positive impact across the Department and I am excited to continue to drive forward our work on gender equality and inclusion for the benefit of everyone in Psychiatry.”
The Athena Swan team will now implement a five-year future action plan will focus on the inclusion, as well as career development of, different groups in the department, including new or emerging PIs, students, parents, minoritised groups and people outside researcher roles. It will also look at systemic gender inequalities such as pay gaps and open-ended contracts.
Members of the Athena Swan self assessment team in the Department of Psychiatry
Professor Belinda Lennox, Head of the Department of Psychiatry, said: “We are delighted to have had our Athena Swan Silver Award renewed. This award is the culmination of a huge amount of effort from our lead Laura Winchester, the self-assessment team and the wider People and Culture committees and working groups who all contributed to its success.
“We've made huge progress since our 2018 Silver Award but we’re not complacent and have ambitious and exciting plans for gender equality in the years ahead. We now look forward to implementing our action plan as we aspire to go for Gold next time.”
The Department has been involved in the Athena Swan process since 2011 with a Bronze Award in 2013, followed by Silver in 2015, which was then renewed in 2018, and now in 2024.