Gender equality award earned by ARU’s Faculty of Science and Engineering

Work to promote gender equality among students and staff has earned Anglia Ruskin University’s Faculty of Science and Engineering an Athena Swan Silver Award.

Conferred for five years, the award recognises the faculty’s achievements in addressing gender balance in terms of numbers of staff and students and gender equity in career progression.

The award panel highlighted the faculty’s job share scheme for leadership roles and its promotion clubs, which provide peer support, as examples of good practice.

The faculty’s student initiatives include ARU’s Women in Engineering programme and fully-funded places offered to international female masters students, as part of the British Council’s Women in Stem scholarship scheme.

Dr Claudia Wascher, associate professor in the School of Life Sciences, who led the application, said: “I am incredibly proud that our work over the past few years has been recognised with this award. It reflects the ambition, passion and perseverance of colleagues in the faculty to address equality issues.”

Prof Laurie Butler, pro vice chancellor of ARU and dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering, said: “This is a real milestone for the Faculty of Science and Engineering and recognition of many years of hard work by staff. I’m extremely proud of our unwavering determination to tackle gender inequality in higher education and research.”

The Athena Swan Charter is a framework used globally to support and transform gender equality within Higher Education (HE) and research.

The Faculty of Science and Engineering is sponsoring the Technology Company of the Year award at the Cambridge Independent Science and Technology Awards.