Making the most of your Athena SWAN award
Making the most of your Athena SWAN award: guidance for UCL departments
with an Athena SWAN award
Firstly, congratulations on achieving an Athena SWAN award! Now that your Department
has an award, it is important to publicise your success, and use the Athena SWAN logo in all
appropriate communications, publications and promotional material. The following guidance
notes suggest ways to make the most of your Athena SWAN award.
Attending the Athena SWAN awards ceremony:
Departments who have been successful in achieving an award are invited to attend the
Athena SWAN awards ceremony. We strongly encourage a SAT representative to attend this
event. This is an opportunity for you to celebrate the award, and also represent UCL at the
awards ceremony. You will receive a photo from the event of your department receiving the
award, which could be used on your website and in other communications. You will also
receive a certificate that you should display in a prominent place in the department. If there
is no one in your department who can attend, please contact Harriet so that arrangements
can be made for someone from UCL to collect your award.
Announcing an award to your department:
It is important that Athena SWAN awards are celebrated within the department. Therefore
the SAT lead and/or the HoD should send an email to all staff and students to announce the
new Athena SWAN award. The announcement could also be included in departmental
newsletters and/or department meetings.
Publishing your application and action plan:
Athena SWAN request that all successful applications should be published on the
department’s website. This is to encourage sharing of ideas and best practice across other
departments.
Please upload your application and action plan to your departmental website. Case studies
or any other personal information can be taken out beforehand if necessary.
Once you have uploaded your application, please send a link to Athena SWAN
Please also send your application to Harriet so it can be uploaded to the UCL Athena SWAN
website.
Recruitment:
Along with any positive action statements and link to family friendly policies that might be
included in job adverts, it would benefit the department to include the Athena SWAN
Bronze, Silver or Gold logo on all academic job adverts. As the profile of Athena SWAN
increases, applicants are starting to recognise Athena SWAN award logos, and might make
judgements about a department based on their level of award. Using the logo or information
about your activities might attract a higher proportion of female applicants.
Within ROME (UCL’s online recruitment system), there is now an optional drop down list and
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Harriet Jones, Policy Adviser for Athena SWAN
Ext: 58860
Email: harriet.jones@ucl.ac.uk
Making the most of your Athena SWAN award
you can choose from the following to automatically add the appropriate statement into your
job advert:
 Our department holds an Athena SWAN Gold award, in recognition of our long-term
commitment and continued success in addressing issues of gender equality.
 Our department holds an Athena SWAN Silver award, in recognition of our
commitment and success in addressing gender equality
 Our department holds an Athena SWAN Bronze award, in recognition of our
commitment to addressing gender equality
 Our department is working towards an Athena SWAN award. We are committed to
addressing gender equality within our department
Your Bronze/Silver/Gold logo can also be included in the job advert. You will need to discuss
this with the HR process team.
Please send this guidance to any staff responsible for recruitment in your department and
ask them to include this information in all future job adverts.
Websites:
It is important that everyone in your department is aware of Athena SWAN: this includes
knowing who is on the SAT and how to contact them, and being aware of actions and
events organised by the SAT. Some departments have set up Athena SWAN or equality and
diversity pages on their departmental website. This is an easy way to communicate relevant
information.
For examples, please see:
 Medical Physics and Bioengineering
 Division of Infection and Immunity
 Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
 Cancer Institute
 Institute of Neurology
 Epidemiology and Health Care
 Division of Medicine
The SWAN award logo should also be visible on department’s front page on the website – so
when anyone searches for the department it will be clear that they hold an Athena SWAN
award.
The logo should be included in any other relevant web pages – for example, recruitment
pages, ‘about the department’, or student prospectus pages.
Events / Seminars
Any event or seminar that is relevant to Athena SWAN should be publicised along with the
Athena SWAN award logo. For example, many departments have committed to run annual
early career researchers events to support female PhD students and Post Docs at a key
transition point in their career – these events should be advertised as being part of the
Athena SWAN initiative. This is will draw attention to the actions of the SAT and the Athena
SWAN Charter – this might increase engagement and involvement from staff and students in
Athena SWAN initiatives.
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Harriet Jones, Policy Adviser for Athena SWAN
Ext: 58860
Email: harriet.jones@ucl.ac.uk
Making the most of your Athena SWAN award
Prospectuses
The Athena SWAN logo should be included in all student prospectuses and publicity
materials. It is likely that post graduate students in particular will become increasingly aware
of Athena SWAN and might influence their decision about which University to apply to.
Email signatures
SAT members and the HoD could include the SWAN award logo in their email signatures –
this will signal commitment from the HoD, and make it easier for members of the
department to identify who is a member of the SAT team. This could include a link to a
departmental Athena SWAN website.
Promoting the award externally
Some departments have included information about their department and their Athena
SWAN award when they present at external events such as conferences – this gives an
opportunity to promote the department as a supportive and welcoming place to work. This
may help in attracting female applicants.
External Organisations:
For departments in SLMS – the Medical School Council (MSC) have a section of their website
dedicated to Athena SWAN, and have been holding events for Medicine and Dentistry
schools to support them in applying for Athena SWAN awards. They include links to
successful applications from medical schools on their website – to help share best practice
and ideas, please send a link to your application to the MSC so that they can include this on
the MSC website.
Similarly, the London Mathematical Society (LMS) run their LMS Good Practice Scheme to
support Mathematics and Statistics departments applying for Athena SWAN awards. They
publish links to successful SWAN applications from departments. Please send a link so your
application can be shared on the LMS website.
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Harriet Jones, Policy Adviser for Athena SWAN
Ext: 58860
Email: harriet.jones@ucl.ac.uk