UL receives prestigious award for ensuring gender diversity
UNIVERSITY of Limerick has received a prestigious award after demonstrating “deep-rooted commitment” to ensure gender equality.
As the first institution in Ireland to receive the Athena Swan Silver Award, UL has been recognised as a leader in embedding gender equality.
The Kemmy Business School (KBS) at UL is also to receive a Silver Faculty Athena Swan Award, the first business school in Ireland to do so, marking ongoing efforts in achieving equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI).
Part of a global framework, The Athena Swan Ireland charter is used to support and transform gender equality and to build capacity for evidenced-based equality work across the equality grounds enshrined in legislation within higher education and research.
In 2015, UL was one of the first institutions in Ireland to achieve an Athena Swan Bronze Institution Award and established the office of Human Rights and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (HREDI) in 2021.
A crucial priority for UL was to address the acknowledged negative impact on female careers of career interruptions for caring reasons. As part of the Athena Swan process, a Research Grant for Returning Academic Carers was introduced to help academic staff re-establish their independent research careers on returning from extended leave.
To date, 73 grants have been availed of at a cost of over €1.5 million. While the grant is available to all carers, only females have availed of it to date.
Advance HE, which administers the awards on behalf of the sector, said UL had demonstrated real impact in ensuring more female academics and staff had been able to progress and achieve promotion within the institution.
Advance HE's Head of Athena Swan Ireland, Sarah Fink, stated: “University of Limerick has shown a deep-rooted commitment to delivering gender equality and that is shown in the comprehensive review it has conducted into the way it recruits and promotes its staff.
“As a result, in the last three years, its number of female Associate Professors has more than doubled while its number of female Professors has increased by a third. Together with its appointment in 2021 of Ireland’s first female university president, the university has clearly demonstrated to us the transformational impact it is having as a result of its steps to addressing gender inequality," she added.
UL President, Professor Kerstin Mey, said the institution has always considered gender equality and broader equality, diversity, and inclusion issues as a key priority.
“As not only President of this wonderful institution but also as chairperson of the Athena Swan EDI Steering Committee I am exceptionally proud that our institution has been recognised as a leader in embedding gender equality and the broader EDI agenda in the sector,” Professor Mey said.
“I am however not surprised as UL has always led the way in pursuit of gender equality as is evident in my own appointment as the first woman president of an Irish university in 2020,” she added.
Professor Mey concluded: “I am personally committed to fully integrating Human Rights, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion into our structures, actions, and culture and to dedicating resources to achieve this end. My vision for UL is to rebalance social progress within environmental constraints and become a truly egalitarian university.”