We are delighted to congratulate the department of Paediatrics on their recently awarded Athena Swan Gold award. A Gold award recognises significant and sustained progression and achievement in promoting gender equality, a well-established record of activity coupled with data demonstrating continued impact and an institution that champions and promotes good practice to the wider community. Paediatrics is our second department at the University to achieve this level of award, recognising their significant progress.
Professor Georg Hollander, Head of the Department of Paediatrics, said:
"I am truly delighted that our efforts to ensure equality, diversity and inclusivity have been recognised in this way. I am grateful to Rebeccah and the EDI committee who have worked tirelessly to support a change in the Department’s EDI culture. Together with so many others we collectively support an inclusive culture, ensuring balanced representation from men and women in our most senior academic positions, improving gender pay equality and using data-led decision-making to enact change and track the effectiveness of our interventions. There is always more to be done, but our new action plan is bold and there will be more to come over the next five years."
We caught up with their Athena Swan champion Professor Rebeccah Slater to ask how they approached the award, and if they had any top tips and advice for other departments:
Can you share a bit with us a few of the key things you have worked on over the last few years or things you did that led to you being in a position to go for a Gold award?
One flagship initiative ‘Using data to drive positive cultural change’ underpinned all our work. This initiative involved presenting data to departmental decision-makers before key new decisions are made – which facilitates reflective, responsive, and fair departmental decision-making and strategic planning. Our core belief is that by making data available to everyone, we can use evidence-based approaches to set strategic priorities, address gender imbalances and undertake direct actions. Ultimately, this led to quantifiable, meaningful, and sustained change. This initiative was considered as an example of ‘good practice’ in feedback on our Transformed Athena Swan Charter Application.
What is the thing you are most proud of as a department?
I am proud of the sense of departmental inclusion and belonging that we have created. Staff our proud to work for our department and the collective drive to work together to achieve our goals shines through.
What would you do differently if you were to do it again with the benefit of hindsight?
A key aspect of completing a successful Transformed Athena Swan Charter Application is to have the necessary data to demonstrate the impact of implemented change. If we did this again, I would ensure that all the data collection aspects of the project are robust and in place from the beginning of the journey. Retrospectively gathering data for the application is a time-consuming process and a challenge that can be avoided!
How did COVID change how you approached EDI and Research Culture Change, if at all?
COVID had a dramatic impact on our department culture and identity. Our department contributed to improved health and life-expectancy, not least through supporting the development of the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccination. Consequently, our department has grown, and we have been able to embed core EDI principles into this growth when creating new posts, buildings or teams. Our department does not see EDI as an isolated activity but rather part of our core beliefs that influence all we do.
Gold awards recognise sector leading activity – can you share what Paediatrics sector leading activity was, in brief and how you got there?
We have ensured that we have balanced representation by men and women in our most senior academic positions, and have led the way in terms of improving gender pay equality within our department. There is more to be done, but we have made significant steps to improving the gender pay gap within our department.
Now you have a Gold award – what’s next?
Our action plan is bold! There are so many things that we plan to do over the next 5 years. The key to success will be to strategically tackle each of these initiatives. We do not plan to change our core strategy – which is namely to look at our data to identify key priorities, use data-led decision making to enact change, and then track the effectiveness of our interventions. A core to gender equality is pay equality, and this will be a core priority over the coming months.
What advice would you give a department that is considering applying for a gold award, or is hoping to in the future?
Come and talk to us! We have learnt so much along the way. If you track relevant departmental data, you can see whether changes you have implemented have had the desired outcome - making small changes within a department can go a long way. I believe that being open and transparent is a leading core principle.
You can contact the Paediatrics team by emailing Rebeccah Slater, or you can speak to the Divisional Athena Swan facilitator to talk about how we can support you towards your gender equality aims.
We’ll be able to share a redacted version of their application soon (internal members can read all available transformed charter applications from the last 5 years here)