
The Department was awarded an Athena SWAN silver award in 2006. In 2014, it was awarded Gold, the first Biology Department in the UK to reach this level. In 2019, the Department was granted an Athena SWAN Gold award for a further four years, which is a huge achievement and demonstrates the Department's commitment to the UK Athena Swan Principles.
The Athena SWAN Charter was established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment in higher education and research.
In May 2015 the charter was expanded to recognise work undertaken in arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law, and in professional and support roles, as well as for trans staff and students. The charter now recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.
The award recognises our strong commitment to the advancement of gender equality: representation, progression and success for all. We strive to ensure that there are no barriers to our staff and students reaching their goals, and we are committed to promoting, celebrating and raising awareness of equality and diversity issues in the widest sense across the department and beyond.
For the latest up-to-date news and upcoming events, please see Biology's gender equality web page.
We have been collecting career trees for some of our staff to demonstrate that careers are often not linear these can be found here Staff Career Trees