EGA Institute for Women’s Health achieves first Gold Athena SWAN award 

The EGA Institute for Women’s Health has been awarded an Athena SWAN Gold Award for gender equality, the only one awarded in this round in the UK. The award recognises “significant and sustained progression and achievement by the department in promoting gender equality and to address challenges particular to the discipline. Gold departments should be beacons of achievement in gender equality and should champion and promote good practice to the wider community.”

Professor Judith Stephenson (Margaret Pyke Professor of Sexual and Reproductive Health) and Dr John Timms (Reader in Proteomics), who co-led the department’s Athena SWAN team said: 

" “We are of course delighted to receive this award.  It recognizes a concerted focus over several years to achieve 50:50 gender balance at senior levels with visible role models and a culture of flexible working enjoyed by students and staff at all levels.  The IfWH is unique in the UK, with a breadth and depth of expertise to address many aspects of gender inequality – from FGM to everyday sexism - that affect people’s health and wellbeing.”   

The Institute’s Joint Acting Directors, Dr Simon Waddington and Professor Nicola Robertson, said 

“we would like to congratulate the Athena SWAN leads for this tremendous achievement and are immensely proud of our colleagues at UCL who tirelessly push boundaries to support positive change. Our goal is to enshrine, as a central principle of our Institute, equality of gender, sexuality, race, culture and age. We hope to be an exemplar for those aspiring to achieve this goal."

Links:

IfWH Athena SWAN website
UCL News article
Equality Challenge Unit announcement