At Manchester, we were one of the earliest UK institutions to strategically prioritise gender equity, submitting our first Athena Swan application back in 2008. But we recognise that there is more work needed.<\/p>\n
Since then, Athena Swan has expanded to include all disciplines, all staff and all students. All our Schools are actively involved with the charter and currently hold four Silver and three Bronze awards.<\/p>\n
We follow the principles of the Athena Swan Gender Equality Charter<\/a> that recognises and celebrates good practice towards the advancement of gender equality and provides us with a crucial framework to take stock.<\/p>\n Our latest University submission in 2018, received a Bronze award. This demonstrates:<\/p>\n In 2020 we played an active role in the national development of the transformed Athena Swan charter which supports greater inclusivity for people in all roles, of all gender identities, and those facing intersectional inequalities. It also empowers us to fully recognise and reward gender equality work and prioritise culture change within the University, working towards a more inclusive, representative and progressive environment.<\/p>\n Progress so far<\/strong><\/p>\n We have made incremental, sustained progress to drive gender equity through our Athena Swan action plans in large part thanks to the hard work and innovations of Professional Services (PS) and Academic colleagues, UG, PGT and PGR students on our Athena Swan self-assessment teams.<\/p>\n Taking a longitudinal University perspective, notable progress and impacts include:<\/p>\n Our ongoing commitment<\/strong><\/p>\n Despite making significant progress, we know these positive impacts don\u2019t reach everyone and that gendered issues persist.<\/p>\n We know we have much more to do to ensure our diversity data is robust when looking at gender beyond binary sex (male and female) so that we can confidently understand the issues and challenges of non-binary and trans staff and students.<\/p>\n We know there is a need for balance in considering issues specific to different characteristics \u2013 and recognising the significance of these \u2013 and in taking an intersectional approach. Where it is required, we must move beyond a siloed approach of considering groups, characteristics and charter marks in isolation. This hinders overall progress towards equity for all and fails to recognise the multiple identities that each of us hold.<\/p>\n The results of our 2022 Staff Survey<\/a> have also given us important insights and baseline data against which we hope to measure positive cultural change.<\/p>\n Future plans<\/strong><\/p>\n We will stretch our ambition in line with our Vice Chancellor\u2019s vision to achieve gender parity at all levels and grades in the next five years.<\/p>\n Our next University Athena Swan submission is due in November 2023 and we will be applying for a Silver institutional award to reflect the progress and the impact of our gender equality work.<\/p>\n This will mean critical self-assessment, and engagement with our staff and student community to develop informed, SMART action plans strategically aligned with our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n These steps are vital to our community-led approach to gender equity and to ensure that Athena Swan is an effective mechanism for meaningful change.<\/p>\n Get involved<\/strong><\/p>\n We encourage everyone to get involved in our activity taking place throughout March to help mark International Women\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n Join our community of 175 women and counting by signing up to be part of our Women@Manchester staff network.<\/p>\n The network hosts an array of events and activities throughout the year to inform and spark discussion on gender equity.<\/p>\n Share your views on gender equality at one of two upcoming EDI focus groups for women, run by the Directorate of EDI to gather views and experiences to inform our EDI chartermarks including Athena Swan.<\/p>\n Session 1: Tuesday, 14 March, 12.00-1.30pm (online)<\/p>\n Session 2: Monday, 20 March, 1.00-2.30pm (online)<\/p>\n Rachel Cowen is Professor of Academic and Researcher Development, The University of Manchester\u2019s Academic Lead for Gender and Sexual Orientation Equality and Co-chair of the Athena Swan self-assessment team (SAT) and Women@Manchester Network<\/p>\n Ad\u00e8le MacKinlay is Director of People and Organisational Development, Co-chair of the Athena Swan SAT and Women@Manchester Network and Deputy CEO of the Women\u2019s Higher Education Network<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav in_same_term=”off” prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_post_nav][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_comments][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_sidebar][et_pb_sidebar area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_sidebar][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As we approach International Women\u2019s Day Rachel and Ad\u00e8le share our position in relation to gender equity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]\r\n\r\n When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]\r\n\r\n [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-edi","category-slt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3721"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3824,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3721\/revisions\/3824"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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<\/p>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
EDI Matters: Responding inclusively to transition and recovery<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Melissa Westwood and Colette Fagan: Prosper, unlocking postdoc career potential<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Colette Fagan and Chris Pressler: A position statement on Open Research<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>\r\n