Solving the gender gap

There are currently 81 female professors at Imperial which make up just 15% of the total holding this senior post. Felix has investigated what Imperial is doing to combat gender inequalities and support the career progression of women. In fact, a substantial movement exists within the College and members of staff have told Felix of the “ground-breaking steps” that are being taken to support female staff. However, they have also highlighted that this is “working better in some areas than others”.

The main female-support system is the Academic Opportunities Committee (AOC), established in 1998, which aims to ensure “a level playing field for women academics at Imperial College.” More recently, since 2008, Academic Ambassadors for Women have been appointed to represent women across the College in the Engineering, Natural Sciences and Medicine faculties.

Patricia Hunt, a senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry and part of the Faculty of Natural Sciences’ (FONS) Academic Women’s Committee at Imperial, told Felix how, “We are promoting the support of women at all stages of their career through mentoring, advice and support.” She described how the AOC assists with and reports issues ranging from the development of breast-feeding facilities to working hours for those with young families, as well as encouraging women to apply for higher positions.

On the reasons for the gender imbalance, Hunt commented, “You need to remember that someone in their 50s now (and a professor) will have started studying science in the university system when sexism was prevalent, when the women were winnowed out and so there are few women to promote. In Chemistry, we have a modest “pipeline” of early career women coming through. I hope with all the work we have been doing over the last few years that there will be a much larger percentage of women in the department and thus a much larger percentage of professors in the next 5-10 years.”

Karen Makuch, the Women’s Ambassador for the Natural Sciences Faculty and Chair of the FONS AOC, told Felix that the steps taken by the College were “ground-breaking” in terms of the advancement and retainment of women in academia. She highlighted the Elsie Widdowson Fellowship for academic staff returning from a period of maternity leave. The purpose of this award is to allow female academics to concentrate fully on their research and allows the Department to relieve the member of staff of any teaching or admin duties. FONS has also initiated a scheme so that women post docs returning from maternity leave will also be relieved of their teaching for 12 months, to mirror the action taken for permanent staff. She also highlighted the Imperial College Early Years Education Centre (a childcare centre) which benefits women in academia who are raising a family.

Imperial has an exceptional achievement of Athena SWAN awards

Going back to 1999, Imperial was also one of the founding members of the Athena project, established by several bodies including the UK higher education funding councils, Universities UK and the Office of Science and Technology. Its aims are “the advancements and promotion of the careers of women in science, engineering and technology (SET) in higher education and research.”

The 2010 Athena Survey of Science, Engineering and Technology (ASSET) of dozens of universities concluded that “women continue to feel disadvantaged and excluded in a number of ways.” One finding was that “male academics still predominate in positions of authority.” The survey also found that whilst the gender-related differences tend to be small, they “accumulate over the course of an individual career to create differences in opportunity and experience.”

However, Patricia Hunt said, “I personally believe that Imperial is doing much better than the survey might immediately make you think. After reading the ASSET survey I was very happy to be working at Imperial. I won’t say it is perfect, but definitely better than some of the information coming out of the survey. What is needed now is the Government and funding bodies getting seriously behind initiatives like Athena.”

Imperial also has an exceptional achievement of Athena SWAN awards, which “recognise and celebrate good practice on recruiting, retaining and promoting women in SET in higher education.” Imperial has obtained a bronze award, the achievement of which allows individual departments to apply for awards. The Natural Sciences Faculty is leading the way within the College having obtained a silver award within the Chemistry department, a silver award within Physics and a bronze award within Life Sciences.

The Engineering faculty also boasts several awards with the Chemical Engineering and Materials departments having obtained silver awards, and the Earth Science and Engineering and Computing departments having obtained bronze awards. Deputy Principal of Imperial, Dorothy Griffiths, described this as a “huge achievement in traditionally male dominated engineering fields.”

In addition, the Department of Physics has also gained Juno Championship Status awarded by the Institute of Physics. Project Juno was established by the institute in 2007 and aims to “recognise and reward departments that have taken action to address the under-representation of women in university physics.”

Among the range of female staff that Felix spoke to, none think that discrimination overtly exists within the College today. Whilst the percentage of female professors at Imperial is lower than the national average of 20%, recently reported by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Imperial is not faring too badly at all since science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects have long been dominated by males. It certainly seems that with the substantial efforts taking place within the College to support women, along with the rising ambitions of women, Imperial, and other universities, will continue to see a rise in the number of females in senior positions.

To find out more on this subject, visit: http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/hr/equality/academicwomen http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/hr/equality/gender http://www.athenaswan.org.uk/html/athena-swan/ http://www.theukrc.org/news/2011/06/asset-survey-report-women-in-set-in-universities-still-invisible-and-disadvantaged