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Institute is successful in renewing its Athena Swan Silver Award

The Institute is delighted to have had a renewal of its Silver Athena Swan Award. The is a globally-recognised framework to support gender equality in higher education and research. This level of award recognises an organisation’s substantial progress towards creating a more equitable and inclusive environment.

The award is the third consecutive Silver award received by the Institute, with the first award gained in 2015 and a renewal of this in 2018 under the expanded charter. In this time, the Institute’s efforts in this area have established a flourishing programme to overcome inequity in access to opportunities or due to biases and underrepresentation.

The Institute’s equity4success (e4s) steering group oversees delivery of the Institute’s equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives, with broad representation of roles from across the Institute and also of lived experience.

Dr Hayley Sharpe, steering group chair and research group leader at the Institute, said: “An inclusive research culture is key to our ability to deliver world-class research. It’s been a pleasure to witness the dedication to improving everyone’s experience at the Institute during my two years as chair and to work with my colleagues to turn this into tangible action that makes a difference. I’d like to acknowledge the work of my predecessors and all members of the steering group, past and present, in helping to get us to where we are today. We’re not there yet, there’s still work to be done and we look forward to continuing our efforts to create a welcoming, supportive and positive community.”

Progress made

Achievements resulting from the Institute’s former action plans include:

• Establishing the UK’s first Roving Researcher’ position to mitigate the effects of long-term leave on a research career, where ordinarily work would be paused. Since being created in 2018, the Institute’s Roving Researcher position has supported 16 research projects and one core facility. Beyond the Institute, the initiative has prompted the creation of similar roles at research organisations in the UK and Europe.
• Continued provision of excellent childcare by the Institute’s Nursery, which has received four consecutive Outstanding ratings from Ofsted.
• Co-creation work with the Institute’s Muslim community to promote cultural understanding across the Institute community and with line managers, enhance the provision of resources and increase the visibility of key dates in the Muslim calendar.
• Raising awareness of the impact of inclusive language and micro-aggressions through training and resources.

The panel feedback highlighted the strong structures and support in place at the Institute to underpin and recognise gender equality work. These include committed support from the Institute’s leadership team and a dedicated role to lead the e4s strategic initiative.

Continuing towards equity

Looking ahead to 2024-2029, the e4s programme will focus on four key priorities:

• Career development: the new action plan will continue to address gender-specific differences relating to promotion processes, training, mentoring and the recognition of citizenship activities within formal performance assessments.
• Support for staff: As an organisation with an international and dynamic community, we are committed to supporting members of our staff in the transition to the UK and will work to facilitate their acclimatisation into life in the UK. We will also extend support for different groups within the Institute’s community, such as people with disabilities, neurodiverse people, those experiencing the menopause, parents and carers, LGBTQ+ people and our Muslim community.  
• Workplace culture: Continuing our diligence in ensuring a supportive and positive environment for everyone, actions under this priority will develop career frameworks and create research team-specific handbooks to embed a shared vision of the Institute’s culture.
• Addressing gender disparity in staff leaving academia: from analysis of Institute data we are aware of different career challenges by gender. Our future work will look to capture data on next destinations for academic staff to better understand these challenges and improve support measures. A key initiative is to offer part-time Tenure-Track Group Leader (TTGL) routes to allow for greater flexibility and harmony with caring requirements or other commitments.

Dr Simon Cook, Institute Director and a member of the equity4success steering group, said: “I’m delighted by this achievement and the progress we have made by looking in-depth at how to best support our staff community in an equitable way. Our future action plan continues our ambitious approach and I’m excited to support new initiatives that bring an innovative approach to ensuring everyone can flourish and thrive in their work.”

The Institute's application and action plan are available to support transparency and the exchange of good practice.

Ensuring a positive workplace culture

E4s is one of five strategic initiatives at the Institute to ensure and progress a positive workplace culture. The additional four are:

• Technician Commitment steering group to lead our actions under the Technician Commitment to ensure visibility, recognition, and career development of technicians recognising their critical role in our research, and sustainability of technical expertise across the Institute.
• Wellbeing steering group to promote and support the physical and mental health and wellbeing of employees and students.
• Research Integrity steering group to ensure statutory, regulatory, contractual and ethical requirements (both in the UK and internationally) in research integrity, whilst promoting best practice in our research.
• Green Labs steering group to improve the sustainability of our research and associated activities by promoting more sustainable choices and behaviour and driving change, enhancing nature and biodiversity on the Babraham Research Campus, and raising awareness of environmental issues and their solutions.

Notes

Press contact: Dr Louisa Wood, Head of Communications, louisa.wood@babraham.ac.uk

Image description: Members of the ����������̳ community in an annual staff photo taken in September 2024.