Athena SWAN Charter Award

The Athena Project is a UK wide initiative funded by the UK Higher Education (HE) funding councils, Universities UK and the Office of Science and Technology DTI. The Project is now part of the Equality Challenge Unit. The Awards will recognise and publicise the good practice that is developing in HEIs, by SET departments and groups of women, who are working in support of Athena’s aims ‘The advancement of women in science, engineering and technology in higher education and a significant increase in the number of women recruited to the top posts’.

The Athena Awards have been set up to recognise and celebrate the achievements of HEIs in furthering the advancement of women in SET in HE. The awards are supported by the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering and are intended to encourage, raise the profile of and disseminate a range of creative approaches and good practice in action, from which the HE sector as a whole will benefit.

The Scheme builds on the success of the Athena Project’s development programmes in 1999 and 2000 when Athena awarded a small number of development grants to HEIs. The focus for the 1999 programme was mentoring, networking and staff development and for 2000 was changing organisational culture, practices and processes.