The Roslin Institute receives Silver Athena SWAN Award

The Roslin Institute at the University of Edinburgh is delighted to announce that it has received silver Athena SWAN Award.

These awards are presented by the Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) as part of the Athena SWAN Charter developed to encourage and recognise commitment to combating underrepresentation of and advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) research and academia.

The awards cover:

• Women in academic roles
• Progression of students into academia
• Working environment for all staff

The Roslin Institute's submission was led by Professor Helen Sang, a research scientist at the Institute, and Ms Cat Eastwood, Campus HR Manager.

We are delighted to receive silver Athena SWAN status. Improving equality for all our staff and students is extremely important to us at The Roslin Institute and this award is a very positive sign that we have made major advancements to achieve that. Importantly, a silver award acknowledges that we have established policies and made changes that support female scientists in developing their careers.

The Roslin Institute, which receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, has ~55% female scientists at postdoctoral level, dropping to 28% at professorial level. The proportion of female professors is gradually increasing and is higher than the UK average in biosciences (~15%) but the Institute is pushing for change by providing a supportive and inclusive environment for all staff. 

We have been working with our staff and students to identify the activities that will best support them in their career development.

Among the new initiatives are provision of childcare fees to facilitate attendance of scientific conferences, initiation of new courses, such as grant writing and developing new mentoring and career development groups.

I would like to thank the Career Development Committee for the work involved and their initiatives that have lead to achieving this award.

The awards will be presented at an awards ceremony to be held at Robinson College, University of Cambridge on Thursday 6 November.

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