DPR News
UCC is awarded its second Athena SWAN Bronze Award
UCC has been awarded its second Athena SWAN Bronze Award by Advance HE for its commitment to gender diversity. The School of Public Health was also recognised for its commitment to advancing gender equality and was awarded a departmental Athena SWAN Bronze award.
UCC has been successful in achieving its second consecutive Athena SWAN Bronze award from Advance HE Ireland, for a range of new commitments made to progressing gender equality in the University. UCC's previous Bronze award application focused on comprehensive recognition of statutory leave in academic promotions schemes, and greater measures to support working parents. This second Bronze award aims to build on the progress to date, through a range of initiatives to 2023 which include: the roll-out of guaranteed lecturer (below the bar) contracts to cover academic staff taking maternity leave; strong oversight of hourly paid employment in the University; expanding our flexible working policies and guidance to better support staff to work in the ways they need; more explicit efforts to recruit diverse staff, and; the identification and establishment of measures to advance race equality across the University. The self-assessment process for UCC's second award was led by the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Unit, and involved over 60 colleagues from across the University, including academic and professional staff from all Colleges, and a range of central professional staff, most particularly including colleagues from Human Resources. Self-assessment working Groups were chaired by Dr Louise Crowley, Professor Aideen Sullivan, Dr Abina Crean, Ms Susan O'Callaghan, Dr Eric Moore and Dr Karl Kitching.
The School of Public Health was also recognised for its commitment to advancing gender equality and was awarded a departmental Athena SWAN Bronze award. This brings the total number of departmental awards in UCC to six. The Chair of the School of Public Health’s successful Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team is Professor Patricia Kearney.
For more on this story contact:
Dr. Karl Kitching, Director of Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, 021 4902958 or k.kitching@ucc.ie