{"id":1507,"date":"2011-08-16T15:04:08","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T15:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2013-01-05T08:44:12","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T08:44:12","slug":"funders-get-tough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/2011\/08\/16\/funders-get-tough\/","title":{"rendered":"Funders get Tough"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post is not, as UK readers might think from the title, a tirade about one of our Research Councils’ shortsightedness.\u00a0 On the contrary, it is a plaudit for a UK ministry, who are showing admirable steel on behalf of women. As the ASSET 2010 survey results<\/a>\u00a0 showed (various analyses, formal and informal, are given here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>), women still appear to feel disadvantaged in the STEM arena in higher education. The survey itself cannot prove whether they truly are or aren\u2019t, as it is essentially about perceptions, but plenty of other studies reinforce the message that women are less likely to rise to the top of the career ladder in science, earn the same as men, or sit on as many high level committees \u2013 exactly the sort of problems the women identified in the survey. These disadvantages have been talked about repeatedly, but overall the situation has improved only very slowly over the years. Within any given institution there may be good policies developed, but not necessarily fully utilised or implemented. I suspect too often heads of department or their equivalents want<\/span> to do the right thing, but there are other issues that absorb even more of their attention such as the RAE\/REF. \u00a0It\u2019s hard to keep a soft, intangible thing like equality and diversity near the top of the agenda when funding issues focus the mind so much more.<\/p>\n

Unless\u2026.unless the funders themselves focus the minds of everyone on the fact that they<\/span> care about these matters. And that they care so much, and think it matters so much, that they will start to withhold funding from organisations that haven\u2019t considered their environment, and cleaned up their policies and implementation thoroughly, on this front. For the first time (to my knowledge), a funder has stepped in to do just that.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health has been reviewing applications for their so-called BRC\u2019s and BRU\u2019s (Biomedical Research Centres and Units).\u00a0 These grants are for many millions of pounds and run for 5 years, I believe. This is big money of huge importance to the institutions that apply for them.\u00a0 However, when it comes to the situation for women in some of these places, the message from the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies<\/a>, was stark:<\/p>\n

responses varied from excellent to frankly appalling.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I was embarrassed on behalf of our nation to hear some of the responses.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, she has decided to do something. In the future, when the next round of applications are considered for these multi-million pound enterprises (some of these may be for more than \u00a3100M), they<\/p>\n

do not expect to short-list\u00a0 any NHS\/University partnership where the academic partner (generally the Medical School\\Faculty of Medicine) has not achieved at least \u00a0the Silver Award of the Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There, that will concentrate the mind! Institutions have the 5 years until the next funding round to get their house in order.\u00a0 Some may be well on the way, but a quick look at the Athena Swan website<\/a> does not appear to show any medical schools per se<\/em> as having even a Bronze award yet, as far as I can see \u2013 I hope I haven\u2019t overlooked anywhere. There are some departments named that might form part of a medical school (eg both Cardiff and Queen\u2019s University, Belfast have bronze awards for their Schools of Nursing and Midwifery), but clearly there will need to be a lot of work done.<\/p>\n

I, for one, applaud this action. I hope other funders will follow suit (so the post’s title could be regarded as an exhortation; otherwise it is inaccurate since only a single funder so far has<\/em> got tough). By giving notice of their concerns over this issue, but giving realistic timescales for organisations to sort themselves out, the Department of Health is imposing both a stick and a carrot.\u00a0 Organisations should realise that they may well need this period of years to get on top of their own local issues. Monitoring statistics, examining trends, working out what isn\u2019t working for their particular workforce and what simple steps would make easy gains all take time.\u00a0 The Athena Swan Silver award is not something given lightly for a few glib sentences prepared by a hastily convened committee, but needs thought and stamina. Even so, it isn\u2019t asking departments to do impossible things, it just requires buy-in from the very top and some thought and hard work.\u00a0 It also requires that the whole<\/span> university has signed up to the Charter and acquired a bronze award. I haven\u2019t checked to see if all the relevant universities are actually Charter members, because if not some organisations will have even more work to do.<\/p>\n

I think Sarah Hawkes<\/a>, who is the Senior Policy Adviser responsible for Athena SWAN is going to be very busy in the months ahead, working with the various Medical Schools to help them understand what it is they have to do. If other funders follow suit, she really will have her hands full.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For information, the 6 Charter Principles, which Athena Swan Charter members are asked to accept and to incorporate into their action plans, are given below. More information and help can be found on the Athena Swan website<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

1.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To address gender inequalities requires commitment and action from everyone, at all levels of the organisation<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 To tackle the unequal representation of women in science requires changing cultures and attitudes across the organisation<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The absence of diversity at management and policy-making levels has broad implications which the organisation will examine<\/p>\n

4.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The high loss rate of women in science is an urgent concern which the organisation will address<\/p>\n

5.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The system of short-term contracts has particularly negative consequences for the retention and progression of women in science, which the organisation recognises<\/p>\n

6.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are both personal and structural obstacles to women making the transition from PhD into a sustainable academic career in science, which require the active consideration of the organisation.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is not, as UK readers might think from the title, a tirade about one of our Research Councils’ shortsightedness.\u00a0 On the contrary, it is a plaudit for a UK ministry, who are showing admirable steel on behalf of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,10,19,27],"tags":[60,341,932,124],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-equality","category-research","category-science-funding","category-women-in-science","tag-athena-swan","tag-department-of-health","tag-equality","tag-research-funding"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/athenedonald\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}