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UCL Laws receives Athena SWAN Bronze award
28 March 2022
Athena SWAN Bronze award was given in recognition of UCL Laws' ongoing work towards gender equality.
UCL Laws has achieved a Bronze Athena SWAN award in recognition of its work towards gender equality. The award recognises UCL Laws' ongoing role in improving gender representation, progression, and the working environment for all staff and students, and for identifying and working towards addressing key challenges facing the Faculty.
The submission was led by Dr Silvia Suteu (Associate Professor and Athena SWAN Lead) together with Dr Ashleigh Keall (Athena SWAN Researcher); and colleagues across the Faculty including the Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team, the Dean, Vice-Dean (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion) and members of the Dean’s Team. It presented an opportunity to reflect as a community on the Faculty’s gender equality policies, practices and culture, and through detailed data gathering and analysis, develop an Action Plan with clear targets to meet the Faculty’s ambitions for equality for all.
Recognising the award, Professor Prince Saprai, Vice-Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, at UCL Laws, said: “The Faculty is absolutely delighted and proud to receive this Bronze award from Athena SWAN. It is the culmination of a two-year process of self-reflection on the impact of our culture, policies and practices on achieving gender equality in the Faculty. Our Athena SWAN Action Plan commits the Faculty to ambitious targets and policies to address key gender equality challenges, including the significant underrepresentation of women on our PhD programme and among our Professoriate. I am confident that the Faculty will rise to this challenge and in doing so, continue to further UCL’s founding mission to promote academic excellence through equality of opportunity.”
Professor Piet Eeckhout, Dean of Laws, said: “The Faculty is delighted to now be the proud holder of a Bronze Athena SWAN Award. This is a first for us. The team that put together the submission have worked incredibly hard, and I want to acknowledge and thank them for what they have achieved. Dr Silvia Suteu and Dr Ashleigh Keall, in particular, were absolutely instrumental in getting to this result. It has also been heartening to see the whole Faculty embrace the process, and the ambitious action plan that is part of our submission.”
Dr Silvia Suteu, Associate Professor and Athena SWAN Lead, said: “This award comes in recognition of over two years of work by our dedicated Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team involving painstaking data collection, extensive consultations, and collaborative planning. We approached this process not as a box-ticking exercise but as an opportunity to assess our progress on gender equality thus far and to learn where we can continue to improve. Our Action Plan in particular reflects ambitious long-term commitments that will bring about meaningful change for all of Laws' communities, from students to staff. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience to serve as Athena SWAN Lead and it is wonderful to see our hard work rewarded with this award.”
The Bronze award is the first of three available awards within the Athena SWAN Charter and is the first award made specifically to the Laws Faculty. UCL was awarded its first institutional Athena SWAN Bronze award in 2006 and has since renewed this award in 2009 and 2012. In 2015, UCL received its first institutional Silver Athena SWAN award which was renewed in 2021.
Advance HE’s Athena SWAN Charter was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) employment in higher education and research institutions. Since 2015, the Charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), and in professional and support roles, and for trans staff and students. The Charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.