Athena SWAN Bronze Award for the School of Chemistry

11 Jan 2022

The School of Chemistry is pleased to announce that it has been accredited with an Athena SWAN Bronze Award in the latest round of applications.

The Athena SWAN Charter is the internationally recognised ‘quality mark’ for gender equality. Administered by the U.K.’s AdvanceHE, accreditation indicates that an institution has demonstrated commitment to advancing gender equality across all academic disciplines. Accreditation is made at bronze, silver and gold levels.

“We are delighted to have successfully renewed our Athena SWAN Bronze award. This reflects the commitment of staff in the School to equality, diversity and inclusion and the principles of Athena SWAN. The award recognises our work over the past 4 years and the impact of this on the prevailing culture within the School. The delivery of our action plan towards 2024 is now a key objective and one we look forward to implementing," commented Dr. Florence McCarthy, chair of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) committee in the School of Chemistry.

The HEA negotiated the extension of the Athena SWAN Charter to Ireland in 2014 and in December 2016, Ireland’s research funding agencies announced that higher education institutions will be required to have attained a bronze institutional Athena SWAN award by the end of 2019 in order to be eligible for research funding.

“The application demonstrates that the School has a clear commitment to gender equality activity and a positive record of completed actions and progress," commented the Athena Swan Ireland assessment panel.

Since receiving a bronze Athena SWAN award in 2018, The School of Chemistry’s Athena SWAN self-assessment team, chaired by Dr. Florence McCarthy, continued to collect and analyse data and instigate changes to our work practices in order to implement its Action Plan and improve gender equality. Moving forward, we have a new proactive action plan covering several aspects of EDI and Athena SWAN goals, as we work towards maintaining our Athena SWAN status and advancing to Silver award status.

"We are thrilled that the School of Chemistry has achieved renewal of its Athena SWAN Bronze award. This is the culmination of much hard work by Dr. Florence McCarthy and the School EDI Committee and also reflects the commitment and enthusiasm for Athena SWAN principles throughout the School. We are looking forward to driving forward our action plan and working towards Silver award status in the coming years," commented Dr. Humphrey Moynihan, Head of School of Chemistry.