Athena SWAN Gold logo

Athena SWAN in SHW

Reaching out: wider activities and collaborations

As an Athena Swan Gold Award holder, it is important to us to share good practice in promoting equality and diversity. Recently, our invisible disabilities and British Sign Language activities have been adopted across the University of Glasgow; we advised other UK Universities and organisations over setting up maternity and paternity buddy schemes and supporting older workers; and led a series of workshops and staff meetings to promote gender equality among academic and professional services staff at Hacettepe University, Turkey.

Read more about recent activities and collaborations – international, national and local/internal – in the sections below. 

Prof Cindy Gray presenting on topic of Athena SWAN

Athena SWAN Gold logo

International

2020 Cindy Gray, Breda Cullen Advice sought by Teagasc, Ireland to inform a project to advance gender equality within the field of agriculture and life sciences
2020 Cindy Gray, Asha Costigan Work/life balance initiatives adopted by Hacettepe University staff including use of email signature text (indicating that there is no expectation that messages will be read or answered outside of usual working hours) and core meeting hours that avoid early mornings and lunch periods. 
2019 Cindy Gray, Asha Costigan Visit to Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey to run workshops and meet with staff
2019 Anna Cooper Advice sought by Graduate School of Health Sciences, Kobe University, Japan about gender equality in academia

UK

2020 Nicola McMeekin Presentation in Dept of Social Work, University of Northumbria about forming of Athena Swan older workers group
2020 Jane Goodfellow Advice sought by Epilepsy Scotland on design and delivery of a disability event
2019 Jana Anderson Advice sought by Parent and Carer Network, Sheffield Hallam University on developing and implementing a maternity and paternity buddy scheme
2019 Jana Anderson Advice sought by Airbus on developing and implementing a maternity and paternity buddy scheme
2019 Cindy Gray Presentation at University of Central Lancashire about Athena Swan journey
2019 Cindy Gray Participation in "Top tips from 3 AS Gold Award holders" workshop, Department of Chemistry, University of York
2019 Cindy Gray Advice sought by Leeds University School of Medicine about AS Gold application  
2019 Cindy Gray Presentation to Institute of Translational Medicine, University of Liverpool

Local/internal

2022 SHW ECR working group, SHW professional services working group SHW guidance on staff entitlement to personal and professional development time shared by College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences as an example of good practice
2022 Breda Cullen, Asha Costigan, Jane Goodfellow Consulted by UofG Organisational Development (Internal Communication and Engagement) about approaches to Athena Swan and equality, diversity and inclusion work, engaging staff in processes and activities, and examples of good practice
2022 SHW WOW (wellbeing of older workers) group Built a university-wide peer support forum for older workers in MS Teams
2022 Jane Goodfellow, Elise Whitley Invited by Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology to contribute to the design of an awareness-raising event on the topic of severe mental illness, its impact on staff and students, and how best to support affected colleagues
2021 Breda Cullen Consulted by UofG External Relations workgroup for health and wellbeing about our Athena Swan initiatives. 
2021 Caroline Haig Worked with HR to enable staff across UofG to add personal pronouns to their web profile pages
2021 Nicola McMeekin, Janet Bouttell Talk given to UofG Late Career/Early Career Research Group (LC-ECR) about the experience of being a LC-ECR and the forming of the WOW (wellbeing of older workers) group
2021 Asha Costigan, Jill Pell UofG Central People & OD – Performance, Pay and Reward have based their performance and development review (PDR) checklist on the original SHW checklist, making it available on the HR website as part of the PDR process for all UofG staff since 2021. 
2021 Rebecca Robinson, Nicola McMeekin, Janet Bouttell Wellbeing of older workers (WOW) toolkit linked to from UofG HR website
2021 Jane Goodfellow, Elise Whitley Advice sought by School of Culture and Creative Arts about the design of an invisible disabilities training quiz, and invitation to participate in forthcoming workshop
2021 Rebecca Robinson Presentation to UofG Unison committee about Wellbeing of Older Workers (WOW) toolkit
2021 Nicola McMeekin, Janet Bouttell Invitation from UofG Research and Innovation to present to a group of older ECRs
2021 Laura Hughes-McCormack Promotion myth buster information model adopted by College of Social Sciences to support staff members considering promotion
2021 Jana Anderson Information about parent buddying scheme sought by School of Life Sciences 
2021 Asha Costigan Email guidance and etiquette shared with School of Social and Political Sciences management team
2021 Nicola McMeekin, Janet Bouttell, Rebecca Robinson Wellbeing of Older Workers (WOW) webinar delivered, with attendees from other areas of UoG. 
2021 Jana Anderson, Elise Whitley, Asha Costigan Joint workshop with Carers Scotland and the Carers Trust, with attendees from other areas of UoG. 
2021 Nicola McMeekin, Janet Bouttell, Rebecca Robinson Joint "Age inclusive workplaces" webinar delivered with Age Scotland, with attendees from other areas of UoG and beyond. One to one follow up on pensions information with some attendees. Possibility of future collaborative events under discussion with UofG HR.   
2021 Jane Goodfellow, Elise Whitley Information sought by Institute of Molecular Cell and Systems Biology on our invisible disabilities initiatives (posters, inclusiveness webpage, voices newsletter feature) and subsequent invitation to participate in collaborative project to produce "experts by experience" awareness-raising posters. 
2021 Jane Goodfellow Information about invisible disability initiatives sought by Institute of Cancer Sciences
2021 Asha Costigan Advice on advancement application forms (research and teaching, grade 6 to grade 7) sought by research institute within College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences 
2020 Cindy Gray, Breda Cullen, Jane Goodfellow, Asha Costigan, Jill Pell Request from UofG Executive Director of Human Resources to use guidance on good practice for remote working
2020 Cindy Gray, Jane Goodfellow Advice sought by MVLS on the design and delivery of an invisible disabilities event for students
2020 Janet Bouttell, Nicola McMeekin, Abby Fraser Advice sought by UofG Institute of Cancer Sciences about establishing an Athena Swan group for older (50+) workers
2020 Jane Goodfellow Invisible disabilities event (May 2019) used as template for university-wide session for senior managers, with IHW contributors
2020 Lorraine Waddell Request by UofG Equality and Diversity Unit to be able to share details of our BSL café to British Sign Language users within the wider university community
2020 Lorraine Waddell Monthly British Sign Language (BSL) cafes offered university-wide
2020 Asha Costigan Advice sought by UofG School of Humanities about engaging professional services staff in Athena Swan activities  
2017 Anna Cooper, Asha Costigan Our initiatives/practices adopted in other areas of UofG e.g. parent buddying, mentoring, amending of job description text to include information about Athena Swan, student maternity scheme, promotion workshops, work allocation etiquette, funding for maternity returners/part-time workers/single parents and workers with special circumstances

If you are interested in collaborating with us on an equality, diversity and inclusion initiative or would like to invite one of our staff members to speak at an event or act in an advisory capacity, please email shwadmin@glasgow.ac.uk