Dear colleagues,
As part of our regular communications on progress on Athena Swan reform, I wanted to write to you personally to provide an update on how Advance HE is working to transform Athena Swan. This is both in response to the independent review recommendations and also to meet your needs in this unique context; including most importantly how we will support your transition to the new Charter.
We are already seeing emerging evidence of the gendered impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on women’s careers. The crisis has confirmed an even greater need for an impactful yet streamlined and reformed Athena Swan Charter to support your work on gender equality.
As leaders and EDI practitioners in the sector, you have experienced and witnessed first-hand the impact and great potential of the Charter. As the Charter evolved, its processes and implementation also increased to what became unacceptable levels. On taking up the mantle of Chief Exec of Advance HE, I heard your feedback and concerns about the burden, consistency and reliability of our processes. My first act was to commission the independent review of Athena Swan with the intention of “reducing burden, retaining rigour.” I and Advance HE are totally committed to achieving that goal, whilst managing the changes sensitively and in the most supportive way we can for you, recognising the huge pressures you are under right now.
More than ever, we need a Charter that is low on bureaucracy and high on impact. The recent announcement of the discontinuation of the link between National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) funding and Athena Swan has understandably been seen as a blow by many. With worries and concerns that gender equality will fall off the priority list, I think it is important to note that this link, which definitely acted as catalyst for Athena Swan, did so much for extending the reach of the Charter and its impact into and across all areas and disciplines of higher education and research. While the funding link affected approximately 30 institutions hosting medical research and clinicians, we now have a community of more than 900 award-holders across a range of disciplines from more than 160 institutions. After nine years of embedding positive change, I believe that a well-evidenced commitment to EDI is now a more enduring and credible approach than compliance. What’s clear is that the Athena Swan Charter remains an unrivalled framework for supporting your gender equality work, and through our reforms of the Charter, we want to make Athena Swan the best it can be.
Beginning the reform of Athena Swan
The independent review reported earlier this year and provides the platform for reforms required to the Charter. It presents a raft of recommendations for how we can achieve the goal of reducing burden whilst retaining rigour and thereby improve the sector’s confidence in its gender equality charter.
Despite the challenges and disruptions of Covid-19 this year, I am delighted that Advance HE has already implemented a number of specific changes recommended by the independent review. Most critically, we have created a simple, streamlined process for existing award-holders to extend their awards. This allows all our Athena Swan applicants to choose whether they wish to apply for their next award under the existing framework, or to postpone their application until the new Charter is in place with no negative consequences for their existing awards. Other changes include:
- From the April 2020 round onwards, the five-year award period will begin from the date on which the result is communicated to the applicant, rather than from the date of submission as previously. We have also committed to undertaking an audit of our historical records which, when complete, will allow us to make this change retrospectively for existing awards.
- The prerequisites for universities seeking to apply for a Silver or Gold university-level award have been changed, such that these applicants are no longer required to hold departmental Silver or Gold awards in order to be eligible.
- A streamlined renewal process is available for use by applicants from the November 2020 round onward which focuses on progress made against the previous action plan.
A key recommendation of the review was that a supportive and developmental approach should be central to Athena Swan, which we fully endorse. The following actions are in place and delivering real benefits:
- A new process for remote developmental review of draft institutional applications. These are delivered by experienced Charter Associates from across the sector. I am delighted that these reviews have received overwhelmingly positive feedback, and early data suggests that they have contributed to an overall increase in the success rate at institutional level from approximately 50% to over 85%.
- Our new series of Athena Swan Enhancing Practice events. These too have been positively received by members, with attendees describing the events as “an excellent blend of inspiring and practical”. The next event will be held on 19 November and explore the topic of ‘Gender Equality in the context of Covid-19'. It will share insights into the impact of Coronavirus on gender equality in the higher education and research sector and will support Athena Swan participants to consider how to respond. We will follow this throughout the year with further Athena Swan blogs, webinars and events.
- The establishment of the Athena Swan Governance Committee (ASGC). The ASGC’s role is to oversee and inform the transformation and ongoing development of Athena Swan. This committee of openly recruited experts is providing excellent oversight and input to ensure we implement the review recommendations and deliver the transformation needed, taking into account the unique challenges and contexts the sector has been facing since Spring 2020.The ASGC have had two meetings to date, and will continue to meet monthly until the completion of the transformation work. Building on valuable input from Athena Swan practitioners in early Summer, the ASGC have developed a revised set of Principles to underpin the Athena Swan Charter moving forwards and these will be shared with the sector next week.
- The establishment of a short term Transition Group. This group – drawn from the independent review steering group, the ASGC and Advance HE’s EDI Committee – provides a bridge between the work of the review to the transformation of the Charter, and provides confidence to the communities which fed into the review that their concerns have been heard and will be acted upon. Athena Swan began as a ‘bottom up’ community-led initiative and it is important that the whole community feel that their voice is heard and informing the future of the Charter.
Moving forward
We will continue to share the outputs of the transformation work with the sector as the ASGC progresses. We expect the main components of the new Charter will be made available in early 2021.
While we are working to deliver the strengthened Charter, we are also improving existing processes to provide extra assurance and confidence to you, and support all our applicants, chairs, panellists and staff during the transition to the new Charter in 2021.
In particular, in the UK November 2020 assessment round we will introduce the following:
- All panel members and Chairs will be required to undertake new training; for panellists this will include a flipped learning package of asynchronous materials and a synchronous discussion; for Chairs there will be additional training in the form of a live webinar and discussion with Advance HE staff.
- New chairing protocols will be introduced, which will standardise the running of the panel meetings and ensure that ‘equality of voice’ is effectively managed.
- New guidance for panellists assessing renewals will be produced; this will include that awards will only be removed or downgraded unless there is little or no evidence of progress against the action plan since the last application and no reports of other developments.
- Panel guidance, training and templates will make explicit our intention for the assessment processes to be supportive of applicants, with a particular focus on ensuring feedback returned to applicants is clear, helpful and instructive.
- A new process will be introduced for supporting ‘borderline’ applicants to undertake minor revisions for approval by Chair’s action following the panel meeting.
- An extended grace period will be offered to existing award-holders who are unsuccessful, allowing the next application from these applicants to be submitted under the future process if they wish.
- Panel chairs will meet to review the round, identify any issues that have emerged and agree a report for submission to the Athena Swan Governance Committee.
These changes ensure that the principles underpinning the November 2020 assessment round are aligned with the recommendations of the independent review and model the processes which will be put in place in early 2021 as part of the new Charter.
As we progress over the coming months we will continue to model future improvements in existing practices wherever possible, and help you and your teams and colleagues prepare for the new Athena Swan Charter.
Engaging with the sector
In addition to the sector continuing to guide the transformation through the ASGC, we are also in the process of establishing three subgroups which will support the work of the ASGC in the areas of intersectionality; professional, technical and operational (PTO) staff; and, gender as a spectrum. These subgroups will ensure that our transformation work is guided and informed by the expertise that is across the sector.
We are also engaging with the Athena Swan community via upcoming Athena Swan Networking and Enhancing Practice Events. In addition to this, we are open to attending external network meetings to discuss Athena Swan; if you are aware of a particular group or forum which would benefit from this, please don’t hesitate to send your suggestions to athena.swan@advance-he.ac.uk.
Building better, together
Finally, I’d like to share my personal thanks to all colleagues working to progress gender equality in your departments, institutions, research institutes and more broadly in the sector. Athena Swan is your Charter, and we want you to have a voice in its transformation so improvements can be made that allow you to get on with the work that matters – advancing gender equality in your institutions. Although many of us are distanced from our teams and colleagues and working in a manner that is out of the ordinary, we are together in our efforts to improve the sector for everyone.