Achieving an Athena SWAN award is recognition of an academic departments commitment to take meaningful action against gender inequality.
The Faculty has a strong history of commitment to gender equality, achieving:
- bronze awards in 2012 and 2014
- silver awards in 2015 and 2021
Our work across the University
We support women’s careers through:
- inclusive recruitment
- induction
- workplace culture
- fair opportunities at key stages of progression
Our initiatives support the University's aims to improve equity across education, research and Knowledge Exchange and Enterprise (KEE). We work with the University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) team to build a robust ecosystem that is diverse and inclusive. We share gender equality best practice and joint initiatives with colleagues across the faculties.
Our collaborative approach extends to external partners too. This includes the University Hospital Southampton (UHS) Trust and other Universities. Our cross-institutional efforts manifest through joint initiatives, via learned societies, publications and events. We are also conscious of the Faculty of Medicine's (FMed's) role in the community, a lot of our research involves patient and public involvement. We tailor our approaches to foster an equitable partnership with patients and local communities.
Our commitment to gender equality
We commit to:
- addressing the under representation of women across the academic pipeline
- increase the presence of women in senior academic, professional and support roles
- recognising disciplinary differences, including the under representation of women in Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Business, and Law (AHSSBL) fields
- recognising also the loss of women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) disciplines
- tackling the gender pay gap
- removing barriers to career progression, particularly during key transition points
- reducing the impact of short-term contracts
- addressing discriminatory treatment, including that experienced by trans people
- driving sustainable structural and cultural change through strong leadership
Delivering meaningful change
To be successful, our initiatives must tackle real needs. That's why consultation and collaboration is central to our strategy. When developing our initiatives, we look to staff and student experiences to guide us. We also include perspectives from a wide variety of career families and levels from within Medicine. This gives us 2 key insights that help us adjust our plans for maximum effect:
- how gender intersects with other characteristics, such as age, ethnicity or class, within FMed
- how our initiatives will affect the diverse roles people perform as part of the Faculty
Our activities are coordinated by the Athena SWAN Self-Assessment Team and delivered by volunteer staff and students across the Faculty.
Key priority areas
Career pathway progression for women in clinical academia
We have improved the equitable career pathway progression of clinical academic women by:
- setting standards for best practice in training
- structured mentoring
- strengthening women's role modelling
- enhancing support across the FMed/NHS partnership
These changes need strong support mechanisms to overcome specific barriers in academic leadership.
Building on our success
Using the momentum of this progress, we have expanded our work:
Understanding barriers and facilitators for women trying to achieve clinical academic progression
We are conducting a faculty wide survey, and semi-structured interviews to establish a clear picture of what is helping and hindering the progress of women trying to get clinical academic roles. This work will be presented and published as a beacon project.
Structured mentorship and networking
Formal mentorship programs have proven successful for clinical academics in nursing. Using their framework as a base, we are implementing our own programme. Pairing women in early-career stages with established senior leaders to navigate combined NHS/academic roles.
Enhanced training and fellowships
We champion and support applications for specific funding schemes, like:
- Medical Research Council Career Development Awards
- Wellcome Trust Early Career Awards
- National Institute for Health and Care Research Fellowships aimed at nurturing talent
Role models and visibility
We celebrate our successes, showcasing leading clinical academic women within the University and Hospital Trust.
Targeted career support for women
We closely monitor shortages of women across clinical academic roles. Through careful review, we can offer targeted support to bridge the academic-clinical gap.
Policy and cultural change
We are integrating equity goals into departmental reviews. Using initiatives like UHS quality improvements, we ensure the development of women academics is a Key Performance Indicator.
Our goal
By implementing these strategies, the partnership can create a more supportive environment. In turn, ensuring a robust pipeline of women in senior clinical academic leadership roles.
Research grant ambition and success for women
Working group chairs: Lucy Green and Danielle Schoenaker
Every researcher should have the opportunity to pursue ambitious grants. However, there is still visible inequality in grant application success and award value. Our working group helps researchers, at all stages of their careers, receive fair outcomes from their grant applications.
This complex problem requires a longitudinal approach. Working with University teams, we have developed tools to track funding submissions and awards. They help identify patterns in application success across:
- gender
- work patterns
- career stage
- and ethnicity
They also account for the diversity of grant opportunities in research, KEE, infrastructure and education and the varied job families of applicants.
The tools in action
Using the data these tools provide we can identify areas in need of positive intervention. FMed provides targeted support at each career and life stage, in the form of:
- workshops
- writing retreats
- and mentoring programmes
Our goal is to create an agile, evidence-based system that empowers all staff to thrive in their grant ambitions and success.
Visibility, recognition and progression for support and technical staff
Working group chairs: Kate Bittlestone and Sharon Wilkinson
Technical and support staff give vital contributions to all aspects of faculty life. Our goal is to foster a culture that properly recognises their work, and provides clearer pathways for progression.
We've begun this work by:
- highlighting achievements in internal communications
- expanding access to training and development opportunities for technicians
- making it easier for staff to identify mentors
Next steps
We will draw directly on insights taken from the University of Southampton community of technicians and support staff.
We will run a series of focus groups to identify the most pressing issues affecting career development. These findings will inform an action plan that empowers staff to pursue career paths aligned with their aspirations. It will also emphasise increasing the representation of women, particularly technicians, at senior levels.
Addressing gender inequity in education-focused career pathways
Working group chair: Tim Fenton
Our focus is on addressing gender inequity in career progression for academic and post-doctoral staff with substantial education responsibilities.
We are creating an environment where education contributions are given equal footing with research and enterprise. Our staff should feel confident that education-focused roles wont disadvantage them in workload allocation or career opportunities.
Our Work
We've made significant progress increasing the number of senior role models with education-focused careers. We are collecting data on workload divisions across Education, Research and Enterprise. This data helps us maintain fair progression routes for staff on all pathways, including balanced roles.
Eliminating gender-specific barriers in education for students
We want to remove gender-specific barriers in degree programmes. We will make sure there is an equitable experience for all students, from application to graduation.
Our goal is to make sure our curricula and experiences are fair across gender, and other protected characteristics. To hold ourselves accountable we use external feedback and student perceptions to measure our success.
Our objectives
We are aiming to achieve gender equality in:
- offer-to-application rates
- attainment outcomes
- career destinations
We work to continuously improve accessibility in these areas. We aspire for our graduates to enter the workplace with self-awareness. Conscious of bias, cultural understanding and with the skills for respectful cross-cultural communication.
Having embedded these aims in the new undergraduate curriculum, we are now incorporating them into our MSc programmes.