Athena SWAN in the Faculty of Life Sciences

The Athena SWAN Charter recognises and celebrates good employment practices for women working in higher education and research.

What is Athena SWAN?

Launched in June 2005, the Athena SWAN Charter aims to encourage the recruitment, retention and promotion of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM), and promote good practice.

It was originally set up to help more women progress in STEMM, but from 2015 was opened up to departments in Arts, Humanities, Social sciences, Business and Laws, as well.

UCL is the proud owner of a Silver Athena SWAN award for its efforts to tackle gender inequality in higher education – with most UCL STEMM departments also holding Athena SWAN awards.

Did you know?

UCL has the highest female to male ratio of the top 20 universities in the world for Biological sciences (57:43) (Times/world Rankings 2021)

Athena SWAN in our divisions

Some of the Faculty of Life Sciences' five divisions have each earned their own individual awards.

Gold Award

Laboratory of Molecular Cell Biology

Silver Award

Division of Biosciences

Bronze Award

UCL is committed to the aims and principles of Athena SWAN and was one of the first universities to sign up to the scheme. UCL was awarded its first university-wide Bronze award in 2006, which was then renewed in 2009 and 2012. UCL has held an Athena SWAN Silver Award since 2015.