Adam Smith Business School

Business School representatives collect the School's Athena Swan Silver Award

Representatives from the School’s Athena Swan team collected the School’s Athena Swan Silver Award at an Advance HE Charters Awards and EDI conference in Manchester.

The Athena Swan charter is a framework to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research.  

Achieving Silver status is a significant recognition of the School’s progress and reinforces its ongoing dedication to embedding EDI (equality, diversity and inclusion) values in all activities across the School.   

To gain Silver status the School expanded its initiatives to encompass all staff across the School, improved data-driven analysis, and embedded EDI more deeply into governance and everyday practices.  

The award is an enormous achievement and an important step forward in the School's commitment to be welcoming, inclusive, diverse, and a champion of equality. A key achievement has been an increase in female representation amongst academic staff, and for professional services an increase in male representation.

Silver awards are based on five criteria:  

  1. Structures and processes underpin and recognise gender equality work  
  2. Evidence-based recognition of the key issues facing the department  
  3. Action plan to address identified key issues  
  4. Demonstration of progress against the applicant’s previously identified priorities  
  5. Evidence of success addressing gender inequality   

The journey to Silver has been a five-year endeavour, building on School achievements since receiving the Bronze award in 2019.  

The Athena Swan Charter is designed to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM), the arts, humanities, social sciences, business and law (AHSSBL), and employment in higher education and research.  

The Charter also recognises work undertaken to address gender equality more broadly and not just barriers to progression that affect women.  

Athena Swan Charter

First published: 7 April 2026

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