Equality & Diversity Gender Equality & Athena Swan

The Athena Swan Charter run by Advance HE was established in 2005.   

The initial charter set out to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) institutions of higher education and research.

In May 2015 the charter was expanded to include non-STEMM departments including arts, humanities, social sciences, business, and law. Additionally, it expanded to cover additional communities including professional and support staff, technical staff, as well as transgender staff and students.

The new charter recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.

Strathclyde currently holds a Bronze institutional award, first awarded in 2011 and renewed in 2014 and 2018.

Aurora is Advance HE's leadership development initiative for women. It is run as a unique partnership bringing together leadership experts, higher education providers and research institutes to take positive action to address the under-representation of women in leadership positions in the sector.

Since its launch in 2013 more than 8,300 women from nearly 200 different institutions across the UK and Ireland have participated in Aurora.

In August 2016, the Scottish Funding Council (SFC) published its Gender Action Plan, describing the activities it planned to undertake in collaboration with colleges, universities and other partners to address student gender imbalances.

In line with SFC guidance, the University of Strathclyde published our institutional Gender Action Plan 2017 on 11th August 2017. The plan outlines ongoing and planned activities to address subject specific gender imbalances in student populations, spread across five themed areas.

The University of Strathclyde welcomes the European Commission’s requirement for all institutions participating in Horizon Europe to develop a Gender Equality Plan (GEP). Given our significant existing work in this area, rather than developing a standalone additional GEP, this document outlines the intersecting strands of our work to advance gender equality in the key strategic, operational and thematic areas identified by the European Commission / Horizon Europe. Read the Horizon Europe Gender Equality Plan .