On the 1st August 2016, the Faculty of Medical and Human Sciences (FMHS) and the Faculty of Life Sciences (FLS) were restructured and formed a new faculty, The Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health. The aim was to bring together a new simpler, more integrated structure, with a view to facilitating greater interdisciplinary working and more collaborative research activities compared to the former structure. As a result of this re-structure each of the three Schools in the Faculty (School of Biological Sciences, School of Medical Sciences and the School of Health Sciences) were required to submit an Interim Report to maintain the Athena SWAN Silver status held within the previous structure.
A new SBS Athena SWAN SAT Committee was formed in March 2017 to take on the task of developing and taking forward an Action Plan for the Interim Athena SWAN Report. The Athena SWAN SAT Committees from all three Schools worked hard on this report and we were delighted to find out that all three had been successfully awarded Silver Status for the next three years in September 2018. The SAT Committees continue to meet to drive the Action Plans forward and to ensure positive changes in the key areas that Athena SWAN is involved in: career transition and development, flexible working and work life balance. Our aim is to help all staff and students reach their potential in an equal and diverse working environment at the University of Manchester.
A number of Athena Swan initiatives from our previous structure remain in place and are successfully embedded in the new School/Faculty Structure. We want to build on these successes and, in addition, seek alternative approaches where initiatives have not worked.
Over the next 3 years, we continue to monitor the progress of previous successful initiatives and also aim to capture measurable data on the new initiatives that have been proposed in the SBS Athena SWAN Action Plan. SBS AS ECU Feedback from Interim Silver Award 2018.
Figure 1: School of Biological Sciences Staff and Student Numbers
(Segments are representative of overall % in the School)