On this page you will find out information on how your Athena Swan Ireland application will be assessed.
All applications for Athena Swan Ireland awards are reviewed by peer-review award panels. The panel recommend decisions on awards to Advance HE.
A peer-review assessment panel may have up to five panellists but is quorate with three.
Panellists are selected from a pool of people who have applied to Advance HE to become a panellist, or who are invited by Advance HE to be a panellist when their involvement in a panel will help achieve a more appropriate balance of panellists. Advance HE draws panellists from the following groups of people:
- academic, research and technical services staff;
- human resources or equality and diversity practitioners with experience of higher education;
- other professional services staff with experience of higher education;
- specialists (for example industry and research institute representatives, members or employees of learned and professional societies, gender equality specialists, as appropriate);
- students.
In constructing an award panel, Advance HE seek to achieve appropriate representation, especially considering the gender of panellists, and with attention to the representation of experienced and new panellists. Conflicts of interest (e.g. previous employment or study; close personal relationships) are identified by panellists and disclosed to Advance HE during the panellist registration process.
Each panellist will undertake an independent assessment of your application, assessing it against the Athena Swan Ireland criteria and recommending scores from criteria ‘not satisfied’ to criteria ‘fully satisfied’ for each criterion using a feedback template provided.
Panellists will then convene virtually to discuss the application and individual independent assessments. On the basis of this discussion, scores will be finalised for each criterion and an application outcome and key feedback agreed.
The panel will recommend one of the following outcomes:
- Award conferred: the application satisfies all of the criteria.
- No award – revisions requested: the application partially satisfies the criteria but there are areas requiring improvement. The applicant will be offered the chance to address the panel’s feedback through in the revisions request process.
- No award: the application does not satisfy the award criterion. The applicant may resubmit in a future award round.
You will typically receive the outcome of your award within 12 weeks of applying.
You can see the scoring rubric used by Athena Swan Ireland panels here.
Revisions request process
If you score below ‘Satisfactory’ for any criterion, you will be invited to address the panel’s feedback through a revisions process. Detailed information on the areas of the application requiring improvement to meet the award criteria will be provided and you will have 12 weeks from receipt to undertake the changes.
Advance HE will share your revised application with the panel chair and the chair will determine whether revisions are adequate to satisfy the award criteria. Where the revised application is deemed by the chair to satisfy the award criteria, an award will be conferred. Where the chair determines that the revisions are unsatisfactory to meet the award criteria, no award will be conferred.
Awards conferred via the revisions request process will be announced in the award round following submission. This date will also be sued to determine your award validity period.
Athena Swan Ireland award criteria
