Equality and Diversity

The Department has been granted an Athena Swan Bronze Award.

Physics has long been a male-dominated subject. To fulfil the department’s scientific mission, it is vital that we use the full potential of the population and redress that imbalance.

Since 2010, the department has been developing a portfolio of new and existing actions to improve the employment conditions and practice for all staff and students. Good practice benefits everyone, but disproportionately benefits women.

These actions, and the critical assessment that led to them, are described in our Athena Swan application.

A few examples include:

• Sponsoring six prioritised university nursery places.
• Improved procedures for handling maternity leave on research council grants.
• Rescheduling of key research and teaching meetings.
• Numerous outreach events in schools to make Physics more attractive to girls.
• Future Science Leadership, a 2-day workshop a led by Prof. Katherine Blundell.

Additional resources developed by the Athena Swan team:

• Guide for parents.
• Useful thoughts for junior DPhil students.

Some other useful resources:

• Springboard, an award-winning personal and professional development programme, designed and developed by women for women.
• OxFEST, an University of Oxford society for women studying or working in engineering, science, and technology.
• Oxford Women’s Network, committed to enhancing the quality of life for the community of women within the collegiate University.
• Women in Science and Engineering (WISE).
• WISE GetSET Women.
• Various skills courses run by the Mathematical, Physics and Life Science Division.

For further details contact the Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee, Gray [at] atm [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk (Prof. Lesley Gray).