Athena SWAN Silver department award application ICS Silver...To integrate our Athena SWAN agenda with our aim to maximise opportunity for individuals from Black and Minority ethnic

Athena SWAN Silver department award application

Name of university: UCL

Department: Institute of Cardiovascular Science

Date of application: April 2015

Date of university Bronze and/or Silver Athena SWAN award: 2006 – renewed 2009, 2012

Contact for application: Professor Nish Chaturvedi

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 020 7679 9431

Departmental website address: www.ucl.ac.uk/cardiovascular

Athena SWAN Silver Department awards recognise that in addition to university-wide policies the department is working to promote gender equality and to address challenges particular to the discipline.

Not all institutions use the term ‘department’ and there are many equivalent academic groupings with different names, sizes and compositions. The definition of a ‘department’ for SWAN purposes can be found on the Athena SWAN website. If in doubt, contact the Athena SWAN Officer well in advance to check eligibility.

It is essential that the contact person for the application is based in the department.

Sections to be included

At the end of each section state the number of words used. Click here for additional guidance on completing the template.

List of abbreviations

BHF: British Heart Foundation

FPHS: Faculty of Population Health Sciences

ICS: Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences

JFAG: Junior Faculty Advisory Group

MBBS: Batchelor of Medicine, Batchelor of Surgery

SLMS: School of Life and Medical Sciences

SMG: Strategy and Management Group

PGR: Post graduate research

PGT: Post graduate taught

RCP: Royal College of Physicians

QMUL: Queen Mary University London

UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Tel: +44 (0)20 3108 3080 [email protected] www.ucl.ac.uk/cardiovascular

UCL INSTITUTE OF CARDIOVASCULAR SCIENCE Ms Sarah Dickinson Athena SWAN Manager 08 May 2015 I am delighted to write in support of our Athena SWAN Silver Award application. The Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences (ICS), created in 2011 brings together scientists engaged in research, teaching and clinical training in the cardiovascular sciences from a range of departments across UCL and partner hospitals. We have grown to 160 staff, 90 researchers of which 37% are women. I am proud of the quality and diversity of our SAT, which works to weave Athena SWAN principles into our strategy, attitudes and beliefs. We implement actions and monitor their impacts on improving the prospects of female scientists. The extent of our progress has encouraged us to apply for a Silver Award. I would like to highlight some of our successes:

● Our 2013 Staff Survey showed that only 40% of women understood the promotion process, revealing an unseen barrier to career development. We instituted a range of changes, including dissemination of concise guidance on promotions, actively targeting women applicants, including junior staff on our promotions triage panel and mandating discussion of promotion in staff appraisals. By 2014, 3 of the 7 staff members applying for promotion were women, all were successful. In the 2015 Staff Survey 90% of women reported they understood the promotion process.

● In the 2013 Staff Survey, only 10% of women strongly agreed that the Institute provided

useful mentorship. We developed a mentorship scheme, offering training and have created 10 successful mentor-mentee pairings in the first round. The 2015 Staff Survey now indicates that 40% of women strongly agree that useful mentorship is provided.

● We created a search committee to identify women for de novo recruitment. This was a highly

successful strategy. Pro-active engagement with candidates, who may not otherwise have considered applying or thought themselves eligible, led to successful applications, filling 3 out of 6 of the Institute’s core funded posts.

Although we see benefits from our interventions, we see no cause for complacency and recognise that this work must continue apace. With this in mind, we have set ourselves two key stretching targets in the next period:

To bring on more women into leadership positions in the Institute

To integrate our Athena SWAN agenda with our aim to maximise opportunity for individuals from Black and Minority ethnic groups, in line with UCL’s ambition to secure a Race Equality Charter Mark

I take great pride and place enormous importance in supporting our female staff. I see enabling them to maximise their career potential while maintaining a healthy work-life balance as being a key tenet on which the success of my own Directorship will be judged. Yours sincerely,

Professor Aroon Hingorani 499 words

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2. The self-assessment process: maximum 1000 words

Describe the self-assessment process. This should include:

a) A description of the self-assessment team: members’ roles (both within the department and as part of the team) and their experiences of work-life balance

Our SAT formed in June 2012 and has 10 members (4 men, 6 women). It includes a graduate research student, post-docs and academics at various career stages, and administrators. Following our Bronze award (November 2014) we rotated the chair, appointing Professor Nishi Chaturvedi. The previous chair, Philippa Talmud remains on the SAT to provide continuity and inspiration.

A refreshed SAT initially met in summer 2014 and monthly until November from when it moved to every three weeks. Task and finish subgroups were created, for example for the staff survey, and for the design and management of Institute Athena SWAN events.

The SAT team includes members from across our research groups and people with teaching, research and managerial responsibilities. Members have a range of working patterns including; working part-time; and have experience of balancing work with caring and domestic commitments. Several have taken maternity or paternity leave.

Roles within the SAT include liaison with other SAT teams at UCL, strategic direction and creation of initiatives, management of the staff survey, interpreting and analysing data, writing and reviewing material for this submission; and being ambassadors for Athena SWAN in the Institute. The SAT was inclusive in terms of ethnicity and disability.

Table 1: SAT membership and personal comments

SAT Member Comment

Katherine Beaney (KB)

PhD student

‘I am mother of two young children. Juggling work, childcare and career aspirations is a daily challenge. I am fully confident of a brighter future for women working within an Institute like ICS.’

Professor Nish Chaturvedi (NC)

Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and SAT Chair

‘I am a Clinical Professor and Vice Dean Research for the Faculty. I co-lead a research group of 16 people, 14 of which are women, and 8 of which work part-time and am committed to enabling and supporting flexible working practices’.

Simon Galloway (SG)

Institute manager

’It’s important that we create an environment in which all staff are supported to produce great science’

Mike Higgins (MH)

Institute Executive Assistant and HR Policy Officer

‘I developed UCL’s new parental leave policy and am currently in a job share with a colleague in HR. With a foot in two parts of UCL have a unique perspective on the challenges ICS is rising to meet as well as how job sharing works in practice.’

Aroon Hingorani (AH)

Institute Director

‘My wife is a Consultant Ophthalmologist and we share the care of our two children. I do the school run in the mornings which means I often get in late, so I am fully aware of the need for flexible working‘

Anastasia Z. Kalea (AZK)

Research Associate

‘I have a young son and I recently returned from maternity leave and slowly but successfully managed to get back on my career track. That was made possible because of a supportive environment at work that encourages me to succeed and offers me much needed flexibility in my working hours’

Riyaz Patel (RP)

BHF Intermediate Clinical Fellow and Honorary Consultant

‘As a working parent, I fully appreciate the strains of balancing work, career aspirations and family life, especially for clinical-academics. I have found a great deal of support from ICS to help manage this balance, especially when dealing with simple things like the school run or appointments’

Philippa Talmud (PJT)

Professor of Cardiovascular Genetics

‘I had my three children as a postdoc and worked part-time for some of this period. I have 4 step-children, two of whom are severely disabled, and 4 grandchildren who I am very involved with. I couldn’t have done this and progressed scientifically without a supportive partner‘

Ann Walker (AW)

Senior Lecturer

I have elderly parents who live some distance away and flexible working is helpful when I need to help arrange things with them’

b) an account of the self-assessment process: details of the self-assessment team meetings, including any consultation with staff or individuals outside of the university, and how these have fed into the submission

SAT members attended UCL-wide events to support departments in their Athena SWAN submissions and liaised with UCL colleagues in other departments such as the Cancer Institute, and with the UCL Athena SWAN adviser, to ensure adoption of best practice within our action plan. Professor Talmud meets with senior female scientists externally in the ‘Science and Shopping’ network to discuss women in science and aspects of our application.

Two SAT members sit on our parent Faculty’s Equality Committee, at which all Institute’s report on progress and share best practice. We highlight Athena SWAN activities on our website, and had an awareness raising session at our summer all-staff event. Athena SWAN is a standing item at our monthly Strategy & Management Group (SMG).

We performed a staff survey in 2013 (53% of respondents were women) repeated in 2015 (43% female). Issues from the initial survey included concerns about equal pay from women, and lack of mentoring were two important issues. Both these have been addressed and reported on in this submission. In addition we recently convened a Junior Faculty Advisory Group (JFAG) with representation from junior and mid-carrer staff as a mechanism to increase input into our action plan.

The Institute is in an exciting period of transition. An alliance with the Barts Heart Centre and Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) has been created, linking academia with NHS clinical care. We have begun discussions with our counterpart SAT to explore joint working, and adoption of joint protocols and practice (Action 2.1).

c) Plans for the future of the self assessment team, such as how often the team will continue to meet, any reporting mechanisms and in particular how the self-assessment team intends to monitor implementation of the action plan.

Following submission the SAT will reconvene at least every two months to monitor progress of our action plan. We will use surveys, focus groups and new data to monitor our action plan and inform new initiatives.

We will also:

Rotate the chair for each new submissions

Continually look to expand / refresh membership (Action 2.2)

Implement, monitor, evaluate and update the SAT action plan

Work on recommendations made by the JFAG for future Athena SWAN initiatives (Action 2.3)

Produce an annual progress report for all staff

Meet regularly with our counterpart at QMUL and develop joint activities in support of women in science.

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3. A picture of the department: maximum 2000 words

a) Provide a pen-picture of the department to set the context for the application, outlining in particular any significant and relevant features.

The Institute of Cardiovascular Science (ICS) formed in 2011, brought together basic and clinical scientists in disciplines including epidemiology, genetics, imaging, hypertension, inherited disease and engineering. We have 8 research groups and 160 staff including 90 scientists, 33 of which are women. Group heads report to the Institute Director, Aroon Hingorani, and are supported by 5 administrative staff.

Figure 1. Research groupings of the Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences 2015

Staff members work in eight buildings over three sites. This geographical spread, and our origins in four different university departments, presented challenges to fostering a common culture at the Institute’s inception. However, our Athena SWAN initiatives have provided us with a helpful focus to address this, acting as both driver and enabler in instilling common principles and goals.

Clinicians in our Institute have joint NHS appointments, largely in Cardiology. The gender balance of our clinical academics reflects that found in cardiology (i.e. around 21% women overall and 11% women at consultant level – RCP2011). The expansion of the clinical service in its re-location to the Barts Heart Centre in May 2015 provides an opportunity to address this gender imbalance through recruitment.

Research

ICS is a world-class centre of expertise in pioneering novel strategies in preventative and therapeutic cardiovascular medicine. Our research is interdisciplinary and we collaborate internally, across the UK and worldwide, providing opportunities to share Athena SWAN experiences and activities.

Institute of Cardiovascular

Science Cardiology in the Young

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Hatter Cardiovascular

Institute

Cardiovascular Genetics

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GOSH

Cardiovascular Imaging Group

Cardiometabolic Phenotyping Unit

b) Provide data for the past three years (where possible with clearly labelled graphical illustrations) on the following with commentary on their significance and how they have affected action planning.

Student data

(i) Numbers of males and females on access or foundation courses – comment on the data and describe any initiatives taken to attract women to the courses.

We do not run foundation courses.

(ii) Undergraduate male and female numbers – full and part-time – comment on the female:male ratio compared with the national picture for the discipline. Describe any initiatives taken to address any imbalance and the impact to date. Comment upon any plans for the future.

ICS contributes a compulsory module to all 330 students on UCL’s MBBS programme. The UCL female student intake is close to the national average of 55% (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Undergraduate Medical School Population by Gender 2010-14

Our MBBS teaching introduces pre-clinical students to patients. Six of the 16 (38%) clinical tutors on this course are women. This ensures the visibility of female clinicians as role models, providing encouragement to female students to consider cardiology as a career. The two prizes awarded to date for the best end-of course essay have been won by women.

A new integrated BSc in Cardiovascular Science launching in 2016 provides a new opportunity to encourage female applicants to the discipline by including images of female students and teachers in the course advertising materials (as we have done with our MSc, see below) and by ensuring female course tutors are present at the iBSc fair, where students make their course selection (Action 3.1).

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(iii) Postgraduate male and female numbers completing taught courses – full and part-time – comment on the female:male ratio compared with the national picture for the discipline. Describe any initiatives taken to address any imbalance and the effect to date. Comment upon any plans for the future.

The Institute’s MSc in Cardiovascular Science launched in 2012/13. Flexible part-time study has been offered since 2014/15 but so far has not been taken up.

A promotional video for the course highlighted the personal tutoring system and supportive environment, featuring several positive female role models. These include the course director, and two out of four students. We advertise on the British Atherosclerosis Society, UCL and findamasters websites. The video has been viewed 1,169 times in one year.

Figure 3. MSc Cardiovascular Science video images

Enrolment on the MSc course has increased from 12 to 19 in 3 years; the proportion of women from 58% to 68%. 100% of enrolled women completed the course, comparing favourably to the national average of 93% for women and 94% for men (HESA 2012-13). In addition to the academic and practical support of the course director and education officer, anecdotal evidence suggests that assigning an individual personal tutor contributes to our high completion rate (Figure 4).

Figure 4. MSc Cardiovascular Science students entering and completing the course by gender

The proportion of women graduating from our course is similar to that for the MSc in Preventative Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College, and to the national picture for Clinical Medicine (Table 2).

We will continue to monitor and review student completion data (Action Point 3.2).

Table 2. Percentage women completers by course compared to the national average

UCL MSc Cardiovascular Science

Imperial MSc Preventative Cardiology

National picture: ECU data Biological Science PGT

National picture: ECU data Clinical Medicine, PGT

2012-13 58% (7) 65% 68% 61%

2013-14 45% (5) 48% N/A N/A

(iv) Postgraduate male and female numbers on research degrees – full and part-time – comment on the female:male ratio compared with the national picture for the discipline. Describe any initiatives taken to address any imbalance and the effect to date. Comment upon any plans for the future.

ICS runs three postgraduate research programmes: MD(Res), 3-year PhD and 4-Year BHF PhD. The total number of students, and proportion of women, has increased, the latter from 35% to 40% in three years (Figure 5). This is lower than comparator HESA (2012) data for women in biological sciences (60%) and clinical medicine (58%). Stratification by full-time/part-time status reveals that female representation for full-time, largely basic science, degrees, ranging from 58% to 64%, is similar to the national average, whereas part time registration is largely taken up by clinical cardiologists, and female representation, at 22% reflects the proportion of women entering that specialty nationally.

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Figure 5. Total and full time PGR student numbers 2011-2014

The interview panel for the three BHF PhD positions in 2014 consisted of one male and four females; positions were offered to and accepted by one male and two female students. We aim to achieve equitable gender balance on PhD interview panels (Action 3.3).

(v) Ratio of course applications to offers and acceptances by gender for undergraduate, postgraduate taught and postgraduate research degrees – comment on the differences between male and female application and success rates and describe any initiatives taken to address any imbalance and their effect to date. Comment upon any plans for the future.

Postgraduate Taught (PGT)

Just over 60% of applicants to the MSc course are women. For each year, the gender ratio was maintained at both the offers and acceptances stages (Figure 6). Our processes appear equitable, but we will continue to monitor trends.

Figure 6. MSc in Cardiovascular Science: PGT applications, offers and acceptances

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The MSc student selection committee makes offers on the basis of published criteria, and keeps records. Committee members have all attended courses in recruitment and equality of selection. In the first year we increased numbers by 58%.

The proportion of female PGT students at the application, offer and acceptance stages is similar to that for MSc Preventative Cardiology at the National Heart and Lung Institute, Imperial College (Table 3).

Table 3. Percentage women by course for PGT Applications, Offers and Acceptances

UCL MSc Cardiovascular Science Imperial MSc Preventative Cardiology

Applications Offers Acceptances Applications Offers Acceptances

2012-13 63% 63% 58% 59% 67% 71%

2013-14 48% 45% 45% 53% 57% 53%

2014-15 65% 64% 68% N/A N/A N/A

Postgraduate Research (PGR)

Our PGR opportunities appear on our website, with the BHF PhD programme being advertised nationally. Just over half of applicants are women (Figure 7). The offer rate was lower for women than men (38% versus 80%) in 2014/15. We are reviewing this and planning remedial action (Action 3.4).

Figure 7. PGR applications, offers and acceptances

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(vi) Degree classification by gender – comment on any differences in degree attainment between males and females and describe what actions are being taken to address any imbalance.

Post-Graduate Taught

Grade achievement was equally high in men and women (Figure 8).

Figure 8. MSc Cardiovascular Science PGT degree classification by gender

Post-Graduate Research There is no gender difference in time to thesis submission (Figure 9). We will continue to monitor completion rates (Action Point 3.5).

Figure 9. Average time to submission of doctorate

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(vii) Female:male ratio of academic staff and research staff – researcher, lecturer, senior lecturer, reader, professor (or equivalent). comment on any differences in numbers between males and females and say what action is being taken to address any underrepresentation at particular grades/levels

46 of the 90 research staff are non-clinical, 22 of those are women (48%, matching the HESA figure for Biosciences in London). Of the 44 clinicians, 12 are women (27% - lower than the HESA figure of 47% for clinical medicine in London but similar to the RCP figure of 21% for cardiologists). Thus, for non-clinical posts, there is a balance or even a preponderance of women at earlier career stages, with male dominance at senior professorial level. For clinical posts, men predominate throughout.

Figures 11 and 12, which include students, shows that the long term pipeline leaks beyond the post-doc/senior post-doc stage and that there is attrition of women beyond that.

Figure 10: Staff snapshot by type and gender 1st October 2014

Figure 11: Non-clinical pipeline 2011 to 2014

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Professors

One in four non-clinical professors is a woman (25% compared to HESA 17% for Biosciences). Amongst 10 clinical professors, only one, a recent recruit, is a woman, 10% compared to HESA 24% in Clinical Medicine, but reflecting the proportion of women in consultant cardiology posts nationally (11%).

Explanations for this gender imbalance include:

Age profile: 10 of our 14 professors are over 50, six are over 60. However, the removal of compulsory retirement may constrain change at this level.

Cardiology remains a male dominated specialty.

Our approach to redressing this imbalance has been three fold: we are seeking to encourage consideration of Cardiology as a career, by emphasis on positive female role models in our MBBS teaching and MSc recruitment; we pro-actively search for women to recruit to senior posts (historically core funded but increasingly looking to fellowship funding as a consequence of restrictions on new core posts at UCL), and we target and encourage women scientists annually to consider putting themselves forward for promotion. Both of the latter approaches have already increased the proportion of women in the professoriate.

Senior Lecturers and Principal Research Associates

We have nearly doubled numbers of non-clinicians by recent recruitment and/or promotion of three women. Two were internal promotions, targeted and actively supported in their applications.

The recent appointment of a female cardiologist, head hunted from another institution, has increased our clinical numbers. She has a mentor to support growth in leadership skills and prepare for promotion.

Lecturers

We have no lecturers.

Senior Research Associates / Fellows – Key Transition Point

Unlike senior posts, female representation in non-clinical posts at a junior level is high, with 7 of 11 staff (64%) in this grade being women, as a consequence of internal pro-active promotion. In contrast, 1/6 clinicians in this grade is a woman (17%) similar to the speciality norm. Despite this, we aim to do better. We will review recruitment and selection strategies using hard data and focus group discussions to identify barriers to application and selection, and plan interventions accordingly. (Action Point 3.6)

Research Associates / Fellows – Key Transition Point

This is the commonest scientific role in the Institute, the area of greatest equality and the point at which the pipeline leaks. Of the 20 non-clinical post-docs, 10 are female (50%). This mirrors the HESA figure in biosciences. Funding for long-term employment and career progression are significant barriers and affect men and women equally. We have focussed initiatives for this group, through enhanced promotion processes, fellowship days, careers surgery and a mentoring scheme (see later sections). We have 23 clinicians at this grade. Six are women, which at 26% is considerably lower than the HESA figure of 60% in clinical medicine but is similar to that in clinical cardiology.

Research Assistants

These posts are occupied by scientists without PhDs who have the expectation of gaining one. Few new appointments are made to this grade.

Current activities and plans

Recognising that our academic structure is male professor heavy and that the pipeline has few women in academic grades, despite our recent successes, we have developed a 7-point plan (Actions 3.7-3.13).

Search committee to actively seek female candidates for core funded posts. This approach has already yielded fruit, with three of the six recent appointments going to women identified by this process.

Support existing staff to apply for research council and BHF fellowships through one-to-one mentoring, review of draft applications, enabling collaboration and interview training. Three of our last five applications for fellowships from current staff came from women receiving structured in-depth supported in this way.

Identification and support of women for internal promotion

Prepare and advance women in leadership roles

Mentoring at postgraduate and post-doc level which currently pairs 20 staff into mentoring relationships (see section on support for staff at key transition points)

Leadership of, or participation in, faculty-wide early career fora. For example, the SAT chair participated in a workshop attended by over 100 participants, and led an in depth seminar of the Faculty ‘get that grant’ series.

Promotion and implementation of policies on parental leave and flexible working, including additional support for maternity and paternity leave.

(viii) Turnover by grade and gender – comment on any differences between men and women in

turnover and say what is being done to address this. Where the number of staff leaving is small, comment on the reasons why particular individuals left.

No core academic staff left during the three year period and all leavers were those funded by external research grants with funding end dates. Reasons for voluntary resignation or moving include return to the NHS for clinical staff, and re-location to another HEI for non-clinical staff. This latter pattern is encouraged at a junior stage for career progression, in order to gain new skills and demonstrate independence.

Figure 13: Reasons for leaving 2011/12 to 2013/14

Table 4: Proportion of staff leaving as a percentage of total employed, stratified by gender

2011/12 2012/13 2013/14

Female Male Female Men Female Male

Resignation 9% 4% 4% 9% 15% 3%

Contract-related 27% 18% 4% 9% 8% 7%

Retirement 4%

Transfer 2%

Although women who leave as a proportion of all women employed appears high, absolute numbers are small. We will introduce and analyse an online exit survey for scientific staff and identify appropriate actions (Action 3.14).

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Key career transition points

a) Provide data for the past three years (where possible with clearly labelled graphical illustrations) on the following with commentary on their significance and how they have affected action planning.

(i) Job application and success rates by gender and grade – comment on any differences in recruitment between men and women at any level and say what action is being taken to address this.

Our previous application did not discuss recruitment practice in detail as there were doubts about data quality. Ensuring good recruitment data prospectively was one of our action points and we have achieved this for the last year of the data. We have reviewed and revised the historic data and include three year data for non-clinical posts for the first time.

Non-clinical research posts

Figure 14a: Non- Clinical Research Recruitment October 2011 to September 2013

Figure 14b: Non-clinical Research Recruitment 2013-14

The data shows an attrition rate at all stages but with the attrition rate slowing from 2013-14. This coincides with the Institute’s action planning for our previous Athena application and improved data quality. These improvements, while welcome, still show room for improvement and our action plan focuses on this key transition point for women. It is clear that the proportion of women succeeding is less than it should be.

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Figure 15: Clinical Research Associate Recruitment 2013-14

Clinical Research Posts

Far fewer women than men apply for clinical posts, reflecting the gender balance in the candidate pool. Interview rates by gender are balanced but there is a clear indication that far fewer women (33%) than men (62%) are made offers. This suggests there is something about the interview process that works against women being appointed that needs further exploration.

Figure 16: Core Academic Recruitment (combined) 2011-2014

The low numbers of applicants for academic posts reflects their specialist nature and the pipeline suggests equality in recruitment for these posts.

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Conscious that recruitment needs to be fair we have already taken the following steps:

Improved recruitment data to allow better analysis issues

Reviewed and revised recruitment material to ensure inclusion of a generic equality statement and an unambiguous section on our commitment to Athena SWAN including a link to our Bronze submission

We draw applicant’s attention to work-life balance policies and other relevant benefits e.g. maternity entitlements

Ensure new starters take UCL recruitment training which includes information on the Equality Act 2010 and a discussion on unconscious bias.

25% of our SMG have had unconscious bias training

All our panels at least meet (and often exceed) the UCL policy of 25% women

However, further activity is clearly needed, and the following actions are planned:

Action Points:

All academics and staff managers who sit on panels to refresh their recruitment knowledge at least every three years by attending UCL training (Action 4.1)

All academic and senior research staff to do unconscious bias training (31st December 2015 – dedicated funding in budget for 2015/16) (Action 4.2)

Ensure that potential applicants are given the option of discussing the role with a female academic (Action 4.3)

Run a focus group with academic cardiologists to understand why women are less successful than men at interview (Action 4.4)

Work with ‘Women in Cardiology’ in the British Cardiovascular Society to help efforts to increase the number of applicants, for example by using their network to advertise positions (Action 4.5)

(ii) Applications for promotion and success rates by gender and grade – comment on whether these differ for men and women and if they do explain what action may be taken. Where the number of women is small applicants may comment on specific examples of where women have been through the promotion process. Explain how potential candidates are identified.

Promotions at UCL are in two categories, senior and research. Senior promotions is for all academic staff and those research staff applying for promotion beyond senior post-doc level; research promotions is for research staff up to senior post-doc level.

Irrespective of type, we invite all eligible staff to submit their CVs to a local gender and grade-balanced panel which includes research staff and non-Institute academics. It assesses applications against the criteria and decides which to support to the decision making stage (a Faculty committee for research promotions and a UCL-wide committee for senior promotions).

Applicants receive constructive feedback from the Director and since 2011 all those who we supported have been successful, including six women. We believe that the rigorous local assessment contributes to our high success rate.

Figure 17: Combined Promotions 2011 to 2014

Success rates for women from application to promotion are marginally higher than for men. However, relatively few of either gender take the opportunity to submit their CVs and our action plan aims to increase the applicant rate to at least 40% of all eligible staff each year.

The main barrier to senior promotion for research staff is funding: for an application to succeed there must be funding in place from 1st October in the following year, around 11-12 months after the process starts. Therefore the Institute has adopted a policy whereby, the substance of the case is the most important consideration and if supported the Institute will try to identify funding. To date this has approach has been successful.

Such considerations do not apply to academic staff and the Institute is now in a position in which only six of its academics are below Professor level, with one of those going through the promotions process at the time of writing.

Promotion processes for research staff have not always been well understood so we have taken a number of steps to increase understanding by:

Sending concise written guidance on UCL processes to all eligible staff

Explaining the internal process in an invitation to all eligible staff to submit their CV for consideration

Emphasising funding as a secondary issue to achievement (previously lack of funding was an absolute barrier to application)

Offering the opportunity to speak to the Institute manager about process and Director about applying

Inviting all research staff to be considered as a member of our internal promotion committee and appointing a female from the applicants

Having a grade and gender balanced internal committee to make transparent decisions based on the criteria

Giving feedback to applicants

Creating an aide memoir for appraisers which includes a prompt to discuss promotion

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Our action points are:

Bring forward the invitation to research staff to apply by around a month to 1st October in each year to allow more time to prepare; to align it with senior promotions activity; and maximise time to identify funding (Action 4.6)

Run an annual research promotions workshop with HR and academic colleagues in September (Action 4.7)

Continue to host our own and promote other departments’ annual ‘fellowship’ events and make explicit the link between a fellowship as evidence of achievement and as source of funding (Action 4.8)

b) For each of the areas below, explain what the key issues are in the department, what steps have been taken to address any imbalances, what success/impact has been achieved so far and what additional steps may be needed.

(i) Recruitment of staff – comment on how the department’s recruitment processes ensure that female candidates are attracted to apply, and how the department ensures its short listing, selection processes and criteria comply with the university’s equal opportunities policies

We instituted the following process initiatives to enhance the existing UCL equal opportunities policy:

Recruitment templates were reviewed at Institute level to ensure: o Criteria are grade-appropriate o Non-discriminatory language is used o Positive action statements are included; senior roles specifically encourage female

applicants o Specific reference to our Athena SWAN work, with links o Inclusion of work-life balance and support policy references

Shortlisting scores are collected and anomalous outcomes are explored with the recruiting manager

Panel composition is collected and monitored to ensure at least 25% of each panel are female (we regularly achieve 33%)

Involvement of non-ICS female colleagues in recruitment panels to ensure representation and to spread workload

New managers are advised by Institute manager to attend mandatory recruitment training as a priority

The Institute Manager is tasked to ensure for academic search committees are gender, grade and role balanced

Used gender equality as a key plank in securing permission to not advertise a professorial post, resulting in the appointment of a female professor following interview.

Although the gender balance in applications for clinical posts exceeds the norm for the proportion of women within our speciality, at 33%, we would like to do better and encourage more women in cardiology to apply for research posts.

To this end we will work with the ‘Women in Cardiology’ group of the British Cardiac Society to publicise the opportunities and merits of academic medicine focussed around a bespoke event at the annual meeting, enabling networking, presentation of positive role models, and discussion groups (Action 4.5)

We found barriers to female recruitment at both the shortlisting and interview stage. We have instituted a refresh interview training skills session for all existing staff, and instituted a female contact person for all scientific appointments. Uptake of this will be reviewed (Action Point 4.3). We will also run a new unconscious bias training session, and aim to improve uptake from 25% to 50% in the first year. Finally, we

will run a focus group of senior academics, hosted by an external facilitator, to determine whether there are indeed conscious reasons for the low offer rate at interview (Action Point 4.4)

(ii) Support for staff at key career transition points – having identified key areas of attrition of female staff in the department, comment on any interventions, programmes and activities that support women at the crucial stages, such as personal development training, opportunities for networking, mentoring programmes and leadership training. Identify which have been found to work best at the different career stages.

Key transition points include moving from external grant supported posts to HEFCE (academic) positions, and from research associate to more senior positions. The 2013 staff survey highlighted concerns with mentoring, demonstrating that nearly 20% of women disagreed with the statement that the Institute provided them with useful mentoring opportunities (data are shown for women only for clarity, however findings for men were similar).

Figure 18. Results of staff survey 2013 and 2015 on mentoring opportunities for women

In response to this we set up our in-house mentoring scheme. An initiation event took place attended by 50 staff’ followed by workshops led by an external consultant and attended by 20 potential mentors and mentees. This series of workshops will be repeated again this year.

We have now set up 10 mentee/mentor pairs and plan a follow up session later in 2015 with the external consultant to evaluate the scheme (Action 3.11).

The early career forum for researchers has representation from ICS across the spectrum, with Dr Kalea as a member of the steering committee and Professor Chaturvedi as speaker and tutor for a ‘Get that Grant’ session.

Professor Talmud, as part of her SAT activities for the University, invited Nobel Laureate Professor Elizabeth Blackburn to speak. As part of her visit, Professor Blackburn also attended a lunch meeting with junior ICS faculty, with a slot dedicated to managing scientific careers and life work balance. Immediate feedback from the session was positive:

‘Thank you very much for organising this meeting with Prof. Blackburn today. It is inspirational to meet her and benefit from her insight, advice and experience on how women can progress in science’.

’ I just wanted to thank you for the lunch invitation yesterday with Elizabeth Blackburn. It was a fantastic experience talking to her and getting her insight on career progression and overcoming milestones.’

Figure 19: Professor Blackburn with Institute Staff

Career development

a) For each of the areas below, explain what the key issues are in the department, what steps have been taken to address any imbalances, what success/impact has been achieved so far and what additional steps may be needed.

(i) Promotion and career development – comment on the appraisal and career development process, and promotion criteria and whether these take into consideration responsibilities for teaching, research, administration, pastoral work and outreach work; is quality of work emphasised over quantity of work?

The Institute operates an annual appraisal for all staff, conducted by the line manager. Clinical academics have a joint appraisals with the ICS Director and NHS manager. The institute maintains records and issues reminders to ensure appraisals take place. The current completion rate is 68%, below our target of 90%.

The current processes though do not fully acknowledge wider activities, such as administration and teaching, we are therefore revising the structure and scoring of appraisals to give more weight to activities beyond research (Action 4.9)

Figure 20. Comparison of transparency of the promotion process for female staff in 2013 and 2015

Our 2013 staff survey revealed poor levels of understanding of the promotion process. This prompted a range of measures including:

Sending concise written guidance on UCL processes to all eligible staff

Pro-active invitation to all staff to consider application

One to one meetings offered with either Institute manager or Director to discuss process and eligibility

Inviting all research staff to be considered as a member of our internal promotion committee

Having a grade and gender balanced internal committee to make transparent decisions based on the criteria

Feedback to all applicants

Creating an aide memoir for appraisers which includes a prompt to discuss promotion

This has resulted in an improvement in the percentage of women who understand the processes, with an increase from 45% to 90% of respondents agreeing that they understood the process.

Figure 21. Comparison of career development opportunities for flexible or part time workers for female staff between 2013 and 2015

Our 2013 staff survey revealed that nearly 20% of women thought that career development opportunities for part time or flexible working staff were poorer than those for full time staff. As a consequence of our pro-active approach to promotions, we are pleased to report that two women researchers promoted last year to senior research associates work part time; as does one of two put forward this year also.

(ii) Induction and training – describe the support provided to new staff at all levels, as well as details of any gender equality training. To what extent are good employment practices in the institution, such as opportunities for networking, the flexible working policy, and professional and personal development opportunities promoted to staff from the outset?

UCL has well-established induction and probation procedures to which we which we add the offer of an induction meeting with the Institute Manager within their first month. Staff are provided with information about Athena SWAN activities and support available for career development. In time, this information will be included in a handbook which will be available to all staff (Action 4.10)

A requirement, of which UCL is proud, is that all new staff undertake Equality and Diversity training within six weeks of appointment.

The Institute will continue to monitor and ensure that this training is completed by all new starters. In addition, all relevant career and personal development training organised by UCL for female students or staff (such as the ‘Springboard Programme’, which several ICS women have attended over the past years) will be highlighted in the new Athena SWAN section of our website and in the staff handbook (Action 4.10)

Personal development opportunities are addressed formally as part of the induction, probation and appraisal process and informally during the year on an ad hoc basis.

(iii) Support for female students – describe the support (formal and informal) provided for female students to enable them to make the transition to a sustainable academic career, particularly from postgraduate to researcher, such as mentoring, seminars and pastoral support and the right to request a female personal tutor. Comment on whether these activities are run by female staff and how this work is formally recognised by the department.

Students undertaking the MSc in Cardiovascular Science are allocated a personal tutor with whom they meet regularly throughout the year of study. They have the opportunity to request a female tutor. The course Director also meets with students regularly and provides informal pastoral care.

Over the last three years we have run successful student career development afternoons. Informal feedback is positive and 65% of attendees were female. At the next session we will collect formal feedback to ensure that the sessions are meeting expectations. (Action 4.11).

We appreciate how important role models are for all students and at our monthly student seminars we ask a senior scientists (male or female) to spend 10 minutes of their allocated outlining how they juggle work-life balance.

We took formal feedback on this part and had 11 responses, 6 of whom were women. Overall the respondents found this part of the seminar really helpful (10/11); 8/11 felt the role model outline provided helpful information in relation to work- life balance; and all agreed that the talks provided useful information about career progression.

We are sensitive to the fact that some PhD students might take (and indeed have taken) maternity leave during their MD(Res) or PhDs. They are welcomed into our ‘preparation for pregnancy and returning to work’ group (see Section Cover for maternity and adoption leave and support on return).

We appreciate the importance of coaching and mentoring. The Institute is too small to support one-to-one mentoring for its students so we have set up a group mentoring scheme. We have been able to accommodate 3 PhD groups this way. The SAT will continue to monitor the impact of mentoring by interview and survey (Action 4.12)

Organisation and culture


(i) Male and female representation on committees – provide a breakdown by committee and explain any differences between male and female representation. Explain how potential members are identified.

The Institute’s governance is via its senior academic staff group (SMG). With relatively few female academics the danger is that in pursuit of equality on committees the burden becomes unfair. This is remediable to some degree by inviting staff from outside the Institute to participate so, for example, academic appointments committees, the teaching committee, and the SMG are supplemented by external staff.

The flat structure of the Institute and few formal committees mean that staff don’t have onerous duties. Where ad hoc work is required we invite and encourage all relevant staff to participate e.g. when deciding what our iBSc should look like we invited all research staff to contribute. When refreshing our educational leads in 2014 we invited applications from relevant staff and interviewed four candidates for two roles. A woman was appointed to one role, and a woman and a male deputy to the other.

Table 6. Committee representation by gender

Female 7% N/A 54% N/A 7% 33% 49% 64% 11% 50% 47% 60%

Male 93% N/A 46% N/A 93% 67% 51% 36% 82% 50% 53% 40%

SMG Promotions Teaching / Student SAT SMG Promotions

Teaching / Student SAT SMG Promotions

Teaching / Student SAT

2011/12 2012/13 2013/14

Other than the SMG, committees appear reasonably balanced. Action 4.13 is to ensure that as we revise our governance structure as we move towards a joint Institute we will increase female representation on that committee (or its successor) so that it is proportionate to the make-up of the Institute.

(ii) Female:male ratio of academic and research staff on fixed-term contracts and open-ended (permanent) contracts – comment on any differences between male and female staff representation on fixed-term contracts and say what is being done to address them.

UCL only rarely offers fixed-term contracts, and then only for a narrowly defined range of circumstances, the most common being for a specific and time limited project usually less than 9 months. At present there are no ICS staff members who are on fixed-term contracts. Staff on open-ended contracts with funding end dates have the same benefits as those on open ended contracts.

Table 7: HEFCE funded staff 2011 to 2014

Female 8% 10% 10% 11%

Male 16% 15% 15% 14%

2011 2012 2013 2014

The main distinction now is between HEFCE versus grant funding. This latter is a key barrier to a scientific career and affects the majority of staff, whether men or women.


(i) Representation on decision-making committees – comment on evidence of gender equality in the mechanism for selecting representatives. What evidence is there that women are encouraged to sit on a range of influential committees inside and outside the department? How is the issue of ‘committee overload’ addressed where there are small numbers of female staff?

The Institute is entering a period of change as we develop partnership with cardiovascular sciences at QMUL. The exact nature of the partnership committee structure is under discussion, but provides a unique opportunity to embed principles of equality and diversity from the outset, and benefit from models of good practice at both sites.

The Institute’s current committee structure will continue in parallel with new partnership structures. The focus is the SMG, which is made up of all our Readers and Professors (currently thirteen men and two women) plus academics from outside the Institute. A teaching committee and a promotions sub-committee report to this, as does the SAT. In the SMG, the large differences in gender composition are due to the overall composition of the Institute, albeit tempered somewhat by two non-ICS affiliate female SMG members from other Faculties.

Apart from the SMG, membership of all other ICS committees is advertised to all staff; women and junior staff are particularly encouraged to put themselves forward.

The promotions subcommittee was boosted by the addition of a female Senior Lecturer from within the Institute and now consists of 3 female and 3 male members. For the first time this year we invited post-doc representation, and another woman joined as a result.

The teaching committee includes staff from a number of other UCL departments who teach on the course. It is open to all ICS staff who contribute to teaching. Eleven staff are on the committee, seven of whom are women. The current MSc course leader, graduate tutor and deputy graduate tutor are all women.

We expect our education programme to expand over the next few yours, for example with the iBSc to start in 2016. The course director elect is a woman, who has chosen to join us from the Division of Medicine.

We established a Junior Faculty Advisory Group, co-chaired by one man and one woman, drawing its membership from all research groups. Its brief is to discuss and design initiatives to support junior faculty in their work and career progression, to provide a networking space for junior staff, and a forum for formal communication with the SMG. This group has only recently convened, so we cannot report on activities and impacts at this early stage; however initial feedback is positive.

All staff serving on committees are given an agreed duration of tenure, with plans for refresh and rotation to ensure that other activities do not suffer. Institute administration keeps a record of committee membership to ensure that the same individual is not approached repeatedly for duties. In addition individual committee membership and duties is monitored at staff appraisals to ensure that committee overload for overstretched women does not occur.

Our staff naturally participate in UCL committees, with ICS SAT members also sitting on the Faculty Equality Group and the Faculty Executive. Our SAT chair is also the Vice Dean of Research for the Faculty, and externally is chair of the Wellcome Trust Investigator Award Interview Panel, and Trustee of the British Heart Foundation.

(ii) Workload model – describe the systems in place to ensure that workload allocations, including pastoral and administrative responsibilities (including the responsibility for work on women and science) are taken into account at appraisal and in promotion criteria. Comment on the rotation of responsibilities e.g. responsibilities with a heavy workload and those that are seen as good for an individual’s career.

UCL appraisal considers the range of activities carried out by an individual and the discussion centres on the individual’s self-assessment. In addition clinical staff are required to agree a job plan as part of their combined academic/clinical appraisal process.

The UCL appraisal process does not formally review balance of pastoral and administrative responsibilities, however we have devised an action plan to address this, which aligns with the promotion process (Action 4.9).

Teaching is a relatively small part of our overall activity while being a significant commitment for individual staff. On our Masters it is done by those who agreed to offer modules and ICS staff often teach on courses run by other departments. MSc personal tutors are two men and a woman. The Institute graduate tutors are all currently women, with the lead for our MBBS contribution being a man.

These roles are reviewed regularly and we anticipate changes within the next two years. There is no assumption that these are women’s roles.

Administrative and managerial responsibility rests with the Director (male) and is devolved to research group leads (all male). There are around five senior academics on the SMG who will retire in the next two-three years. This will provide opportunities to change the gender balance of the Institute.

Responsibility for Athena SWAN sits with the SAT which is gender balanced and which we aim to expand and enhance (Action 2.2).

(iii) Timing of departmental meetings and social gatherings – provide evidence of consideration for those with family responsibilities, for example what the department considers to be core hours and whether there is a more flexible system in place.

Our survey data shows an improvement in how this is viewed:

Figure 22:

To achieve a culture shift we have:

Changed SMG starting time from 7.30 to 9.00 am, and from January 2015 to 9.30

All ICS-wide staff social events are held within core hours, albeit with part of the social element occasionally falling outside of core hours.

ICS-wide events are announced well in advance to allow people to make appropriate arrangements if required. We have had several all-staff events and another is planned for summer 2015. Events have addressed scientific and business matters and have included discussion groups, poster-board presentations, a quiz and food and drink for more relaxed interactions. We have used these events to feedback on our Athena SWAN activity.

Social gatherings are either over lunch or where possible start around 4.00pm.

Clinical staff often have commitments until 5.00 pm and we are flexible with times to ensure their inclusion e.g. the seminar series is occasionally held at that time

Where possible Doodle polls are sent out to organise meeting times

The Director leads by example by asking his assistant to ensure diary commitments fit in with domestic responsibilities

(iv) Culture –demonstrate how the department is female-friendly and inclusive. ‘Culture’ refers to the language, behaviours and other informal interactions that characterise the atmosphere of the department, and includes all staff and students.

Our survey shows an improvement in the percentage of respondents who feel the Institute is a great place to work:

Figure 23:

The Institute operates across a diverse set of sites, yet we ensure that all of these have breakout space and kitchen facilities. Individuals on parental leave are invited to social events and to meetings to ensure inclusion.

We were pleased to see that over 60% of women and men in 2015 agreed that the Institute takes a firm view against stereotypical/disrespectful behaviour. These views are emphasised by awareness and promotion of Athena SWAN activities at formal meetings, staff get-togethers, and on our website.

(v) Outreach activities – comment on the level of participation by female and male staff in outreach activities with schools and colleges and other centres. Describe who the programmes are aimed at, and how this activity is formally recognised as part of the workload model and in appraisal and promotion processes.

At present the Institute’s outreach work is limited and our approach to this will be determined once our new research strategy and joint QMUL department is in place.

Flexibility and managing career breaks


(i) Maternity return rate – comment on whether maternity return rate in the department has improved or deteriorated and any plans for further improvement. If the department is unable to provide a maternity return rate, please explain why.

Since its formation, 15 scientists in the Institute have taken maternity leave; all have returned. In 2013-14, three men took paternity leave, with no record of any having done so in previous years.

(ii) Paternity, adoption and parental leave uptake – comment on the uptake of paternity leave by grade and parental and adoption leave by gender and grade. Has this improved or deteriorated and what plans are there to improve further.

(iii)

Table 8: Maternity and Paternity Leave 2011- 2014

Maternity /

Adoption 4 4 6 6 5 5

Paternity / Parental N/A N/A N/A N/A 3 3

Took Returned Took Returned Took Returned

2011/12 2012/13 2013/14

UCL offers double the national requirement for paternity leave and provides up to 4 weeks full paid paternity leave, and also supports the provision of additional paternity leave. These are publicised in recruitment material, our website and by the UCL Comms team.

Shared parental leave is available to staff whose babies are due (or due to be placed in the case of adoption) on or after 6th April and we advised all affected staff of this. UCL’s policy was written by a SAT member, who has a dual HR and ICS role. He has presented the policy to our maternity group.

(iv) Numbers of applications and success rates for flexible working by gender and grade – comment on any disparities. Where the number of women in the department is small applicants may wish to comment on specific examples.

Staff are entitled to request flexible working under a UCL-wide work-life balance policy and accompanying formal process. This is certainly followed for support staff but (at least since August 2011) the Institute is not aware of any formal requests from research and academic staff.

The available data on which to draw conclusions refer only to changes in hours worked. Since 2011 there have been twelve recorded changes of hours by academic and research staff, eleven for women and one for a man.

Of those changes five are recorded following maternity leave. The data suggests that these were voluntary changes rather than changes necessary due to funding and the inference is that the changes were made following an informal. We don’t have data on the success rate of requests.


(i) Flexible working – comment on the numbers of staff working flexibly and their grades and gender, whether there is a formal or informal system, the support and training provided for managers in promoting and managing flexible working arrangements, and how the department raises awareness of the options available.

Academic and research roles are often amenable to flexible arrangements and a number have been agreed informally. Such agreements tend to be arranged at research group level, with the Institute only being told if an agreement results in a contractual change. For example, an agreement to work from home one day a week will often only be discussed, agreed and recorded locally.

Flexible working arrangements need not be on-going and indeed many agreements are ad hoc, for example working from home on a manuscript or changing working pattern during school holidays. These are typically not recorded.

From our 2015 staff survey, it appears that this approach works, with around 60% of men and women agree that their line manager is supportive of flexible working, while a markedly greater proportion of women are aware of gender equality policies.

Figure 24:

Figure 25:

In the coming year we will implement two actions: the first is advising staff of their right to request flexible working (Action 3.13). This will be done through the staff handbook and annually during appraisal, during which working arrangements will be a formal item for discussion.

(ii) Cover for maternity and adoption leave and support on return – explain what the department does, beyond the university maternity policy package, to support female staff before they go on maternity leave, arrangements for covering work during absence, and to help them achieve a suitable work-life balance on their return.

When a staff member advises her manager that she is pregnant the manager contacts the Institute admin team, who offer to meet with the individual to discuss the maternity options. This includes a discussion of keeping-in-touch days, the possibility of flexible working on return and how to make a request using the formal UCL processes.

Except where a funder specifically agrees to maternity pay, all periods of maternity leave are funded at Institute level. If there is not funding to cover maternity absence then the work is either distributed amongst existing staff or not done (a good example of this is on a personal fellowship).

UCL has a good maternity policy, however, qualitative data reported in our previous Athena SWAN application indicated that there was confusion regarding the policy within the institute. An institute wide focus group set the course of our action plan. A key part of the plan was to establish a maternity and return to work group, which meets 2 monthly. Women planning to become pregnant are also welcome.

This is a forum for informal networking, as well as formal discussions with internal speakers, such as those from HR to clarify questions regarding maternity and return to work policies, and external speakers for example the Wellcome Trust, to explore return to work fellowship schemes. Meetings are attended by 10 to 15 women, children are also welcome. This grouping has been particularly valuable for one member of staff, who although wishing to become pregnant, hesitated to approach her line manager, and her research funder, to discuss impacts on her work. The group offered advice and support, empowering her to make this approach successfully.

We have also contributed to UCL policy, by improving information on rest rooms for pregnant or breastfeeding women. One of our action points in our previous application was to provide enough practical information, for example about facilities for expressing milk, contractual issues, funding information during maternity leave. To meet this action point a fact sheet has been included in the induction pack (and circulated to all current staff), and also that the maternity policy at UCL has been included on the ICS website.

In addition, our Institute based maternity and return to work group has been commended by UCL’s Organisational Development team, who are exploring how to roll out our approach across the University.

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5. Any other comments

Equal Pay

Throughout we have stratified staff data by clinical/non-clinical status. This adds complexity to our analysis, but even with our relatively small numbers it is clear that gender imbalance acts differently for these two groups, and the barriers, and actions to overcome these may differ.

In our previous application we reported findings of the 2013 staff survey, which indicated that a greater proportion of women than men felt that there was pay inequality by gender within the Institute, with the sense that women were paid less than men. We were challenged by the Athena SWAN panel to investigate this further.

The figure and table report salaries by grade, stratified by gender. This shows that, for lower grades salaries are higher for women than men, whereas for higher grades the situation is reversed. An in-depth analysis suggests that this is due to seniority within the pay grade. Thus while pay is appropriate for grade, women are spending longer in lower grades. This has informed our action point on staff promotions, to pro-actively identify and support women at the lower graded for promotion.

Figure 26: Average salary by grade and gender

Other Diversities

As we worked on SAT activities, a recurring theme was the ethnic diversity of our SAT, our institute and our university. To that end, a longer term goal is to broaden the Athena SWAN approach to ensure support for our ethnically diverse workforce, including monitoring of recruitment, promotions and pay, support for individuals from Black and ethnic minority groups in terms of mentoring and career progression, and enable a supportive culture for diverse groups.

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6. Action plan

Provide an action plan as an appendix. An action plan template is available on the Athena SWAN website.

The Action Plan should be a table or a spreadsheet comprising actions to address the priorities identified by the analysis of relevant data presented in this application, success/outcome measures, the post holder responsible for each action and a timeline for completion. The plan should cover current initiatives and your aspirations for the next three years.

Appendix A: Previous action plan - progress updated

Appendix B: Action Plan 2015-2018

7. Case study: impacting on individuals: maximum 1000 words

Case Study 1: Dr Ann Walker PhD (SAT member) I joined ICS in 2011 as Senior Lecturer in Cardiovascular Genetics thanks to the support of Professors Philippa Talmud, Steve Humphries and Aroon Hingorani, having been dissatisfied with academic working conditions and prospects, particularly for women, in my previous post. Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death, so I feel that I am working in an important area. My research centres on the influence of iron and iron regulatory genes upon traits which increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, such as cholesterol levels. This area has been reproducibly implicated by large and powerful genome wide association studies. To this end I participate in large, collaborative studies into the genetic basis of iron biomarkers and red blood cell traits. I am a primary and secondary supervisor of PhD and MSc research students and the external supervisor of a student working in a genetic testing laboratory who is taking the British Society for Histocompatibility and Immunogenetics Diploma professional qualification. The Cardiovascular Genetics group in which I work is open and friendly collective with diverse backgrounds. Many researchers visit the laboratory to gain experience in different techniques to take back to their home institutes. The practice of different religions may require regular absences from the laboratory which are accommodated in the working day without any problem.

Research students have weekly meetings and research assistants have monthly meetings. We also have social gatherings, a weekly Friday afternoon tea together at the end of the working week, and celebrate all birthdays, with a birthday cake rota so that all members of the group will, at some point during the year, bake a cake for someone else’s birthday. Philippa and Steve have helped to develop my teaching career, involving me as a lecturer and personal tutor in several MSc courses and modules and in the BHF 4 year PhD programme. I am enrolled in the UCL Arena Senior Fellowship Scheme to enhance my teaching skills and to gain a recognized qualification in teaching. I participate in the ICS programme of peer observation of lectures and I am a personal tutor and mentor, roles I hope to strengthen after taking the ICS mentor training. I joined the interview panel for a research assistant position in another research group, to help address gender balance on ICS appointment panels. I am the Departmental Graduate Tutor (Taught Courses) for ICS and from the next academic year I have been appointed as the Director of the MSc in Cardiovascular Science course. I have quite elderly parents who live independently in their own home in a rural location. From time to time they need some assistance with the running of the house and garden, financial and other paperwork and health-related issues. Because ICS operates the UCL core hours policy, when needed I can more easily dovetail visits to my parents with working. In crisis times there was never a problem with flexibility around working. Overall, since moving to ICS, there is a complete change in polarity from the negative aspects I encountered previously and I have gained a supportive working environment.

Case Study 2: Dr Chloe Park

I am a biomedical scientist specialising in the application and development of novel tools to study cardiovascular structure and function. After completing my PhD at the Brunel Institute of Bioengineering I joined the team of Professor Alun Hughes at Imperial College London. My Post-doctoral research was funded by a British Heart Foundation grant and allowed me to bring together a distinctive mix of engineering, physiological and epidemiological skills to cohort-based research. During the end of my post-doc our team moved from Imperial College to UCL. The team was attracted to UCL's strong and influential cohort-based research history.

At the time of the move I was 8.5 months pregnant and my funding was soon coming to an end. Not only did UCL take on a person soon to be on maternity leave but my supervisors also applied to the SLMS Research Board Sub Committee for financial assistance for me via the Wellcome Trust’s Institutional Strategic Support Fund. Our application was successful and it enabled me to return to work after my maternity leave. This bridge funding support has also enabled me to prepare research grants and fellowships to continue my career.

Whilst on maternity leave I was encouraged to apply for a promotion to Senior Research Associate. The head of department helped me through the process and provided significant support. The Institute's review committee was happy to support my case and the Faculty review committee granted me the promotion.

Prior to returning to work I visited the office informally to discuss my funding/promotion and my son accompanied me during these meetings. I also attended the CI support group for women which discussed breaks for pregnancy, early childcare and the return to work period. Having such a supportive network made returning to work a trouble-free experience.

My supervisors place enormous importance in supporting women, and in helping mothers to maximise their career potential while maintaining a healthy work-life balance. On return from maternity leave I went onto a 60% contract. My supervisors and colleagues always accept my flexible hours and arrange meetings to accommodate me. I have never felt any pressure to increase my workload/hours; instead I have a supportive and flexible working environment.

Word count: 887

Appendix A: Previous Action Plan – Progress Updated

Action Point/Issue Identified

Actions already taken

Further actions Planned Responsibility Timescale Success measure over next 3 years

Progress To Date

1. AWARNESS & SAT

1.1 Meet with other SAT committees within FPHS

A faculty coordinator has been appointed to organise collaboration. A Faculty Equality Steering Group has been set up which includes representatives from the FPHS Institutes’ SAT

Make contact with SATs in other FPHS Institutes and set up meetings

SG to make contact

Eleanor Day, Faculty Athena SWAN Lead

September 2014

Annual FPHS SAT meeting Both actions completed

1.2 Current SAT: gender balance, representation, student member

The original SAT formed of 4 members of staff was enlarged to 8 members, to include each ICS site and different levels of seniority. One new member is a post-doc recently returned from maternity leave

Invite student representative to the SAT

Open the invitation to other targeted ICS members

Remind the entire staff of the SAT and encourage anyone interested to join

Rotate the SAT Chair for each resubmission

PJT to invite 2 students

SG to email all ICS staff about SAT invitation

May 2014 Larger SAT (12 members), with gender balance, good representation from different staff groups and different ICS sites and a student member

Actions completed; 10 members and all but one group is represented.





Progress To Date

1.3 Launch of ICS Athena SWAN at the next ICS ‘get together’ staff event and annual update at future meetings to embed principles in the Institute

Athena SWAN information has been uploaded to the ICS website

ICS staff ‘get together’ event where all ICS employees will be made more aware of the ICS Athena SWAN programme in breakout sessions

The promotion criteria will also be part of the agenda

AH, SG and Rikke Osterlund, Institute executive assistant

June 2014 Understanding and embedding of the Athena SWAN principles within the Institute will be monitored as part of the ICS questionnaire planned for Oct 2014 Improved response rate in survey in relation to understanding the promotion criteria

Actions completed

1.4 SMG mainly male dominated

Appointment of a new female Professor in Oct 2013, and recent recruitment of a female Senior Clinical Lecturer. Attempt to recruit an excellent female scientist from the US

Assess potential retirement plans for the senior Professors and plan a succession strategy to start balancing staff at senior levels

Identify early career scientists (4 members of staff are currently eligible to be promoted to Reader, 2 men and 2 women) that could be supported and promoted to replace one day the potential leavers

Assess suitability of all female staff at Grade 8 level or above to apply for promotion, and

AH, SG September 2015

A strategy in place to achieve a more balanced and representative SMG within the next 5 years More women involved in management decisions by September 2014 (new decision making group)

Ongoing. Succession planning group is led by a female. Strategy will be determined by new research strategy in which all female academic staff are involved.

Operational group – remit depends on new research strategy, academic groupings and joint-Institute. Initial meeting of relevant staff is organised for April 2015

Careers advice clinics are up and running





Progress To Date

support them through our careers advice clinic

Invite female candidates for senior positions to present in the Institute and to meet staff

Ensure that women are fully involved in the search committees

Set up a second tier management group to engage more women in management decision-making and organisation. This group will organise the PhD meeting and ICS seminar series, and be involved in new educational ideas

No senior positions being filed at present – action remains in future

Institute manager responsible for ensuring gender balance of committee

Governance changes on hold pending new joint Institute

1.5 Ensure that SAT members sit on all important ICS executive committees

We have improved the gender balance of the Promotion Committee, the Departmental Teaching Committee and the Student Staff

Review of the current committees’ gender balance

Additional staff members to join the SAT in the next few months to avoid overburden, especially for the female members of the SAT

SG, SAT May 2014 Decisions of major committees to reflect Athena SWAN principles

Review complete

SAT has expanded





Progress To Date

Consultative Committee

1.6 Athena SWAN progress report to SMG

The SAT report was introduced as one of the points in the SMG agenda in December 2013

Report of the Athena SWAN progress to SMG bi-monthly

Compile an annual progress report to upload on ICS website

AH, SG April 2014: Next progress report to SMG

January 2015: annual progress report

Agenda and minutes of SMG meetings include Athena SWAN update (every other month) Progress identified and reported on annually

Athena SWAN is a standing item at SMG; annual report been postponed to accommodate strategic discussions about the joint Institute. The annual report will be presented with this application in May’s SMG.

2. MONITORING

2.1 UCL Staff Survey < 20% ICS staff members responded to the 2011 UCL survey 60% ICS staff members responded to the 2013 UCL survey

The 2014 questionnaire was highly advertised through ICS group email; staff were reminded before the deadline and encouraged to take part. Survey results have been analysed and

Report the results of the UCL survey to the next ‘get together’ staff event to emphasise the importance of participating

Stress the importance of this survey at SMG meeting and report results once analysed

SAT to develop actions and identify areas of impact each year as a

SG to report results to the next staff meeting

AH to address this at SMG

Report of the results to staff: June 2014

Report of the results to SMG: June 2014

Advertise the survey: at June 2014 staff ‘get together’ and just before

Completion of survey, with an increase of 20% each year. Actions to be addressed by SAT and SMG, progress reviewed annually by SMG

Survey re-run but with drop in completion rate





Progress To Date

discussed by SAT. Key transition point for gender balance and other issues have been identified

result of staff feedback

and during the time of the next survey completion (2015)

2.2 ICS Staff Survey < 50% ICS staff members responded to the questionnaire in 2013

The first survey was designed and delivered in March 2013 to understand the opinion of staff about potential gender issues and identify areas for improvement. Key transition points for gender balance and other issues were identified and plans made for addressing them

Update the survey according to latest results from the UCL survey in order to assess staff feeling related to specific areas of interest and potential improvement. The ICS survey will be delivered every 18 months.

Stress the importance of this survey at SMG meeting and encourage ICS staff to fill in the survey via email communication.

SAT to develop actions and identify areas of impact as a result of staff feedback.

Key issues from the survey results also communicated to

SAT to design the new survey

AH to address this at SMG

SG to email all ICS staff

Next survey distributed in January 2015, analysed and discussed by SAT before May 2015

Completion of survey, with an increase by 20% each time. Actions in place and monitored as a result of feedback

Survey conducted and analysed within timescale





Progress To Date

SMG.

2.3 Gender-balance on all shortlisting and interview panels, including for PGR recruitment. This is already in place for academic posts, but not for other positions where arrangements are made locally

Since August 2012, interview panels for all academic posts have already exceeded the interim 25% female target

Continue to ensure that at least 25% of any recruitment panel is female and aim to make this 50%

Recruitment panel composition to be requested at advertisement stage

Staff to sit on a maximum of 4 panels a year.

Avoid over-burdening by involving women from other UCL departments and partner organisations: creation of a FPHS database

Review of all gender-balance data regarding recruitment during SAT meetings. Results will guide further changes year by year.

SG, all recruiting managers

October 2014

Database in place: January 2015

100% of interview panels with at least 25% female representation No women to sit on more than 4 panels a year

Panels to date meet criteria; database planned at Faculty level so local action on hold





Progress To Date

2.4 Job applications/results Incomplete data until mid-2013

Recruitment of a new HR member of staff in March 2013 that enhanced our monitoring of new job applications. Administration was done external to ICS before and data are incomplete

Collection of robust data for future appointments

Institute Admin

Starting from June 2014

Accurate data, analysed annually by SAT. Actions in place where required as a result of analysis

Complete and ongoing

2.5 Committee work load of female academics

Monitor the committee workload by gender and check the distribution amongst senior academic staff

Invite women from other Institutes to participate in the activities of the committees

SG October 2014

Fair distribution of committee workload across the Institute. Decrease in committee workload for each female individual

Review suggests no overload; data suggests committees are balanced other than SMG

Non-ICS women sit on SMT, Promotions and Teaching / Student Committees

2.6 MSc student course: Lack of information related to the reasons for declining the offer to the course

Gather qualitative data from applicants who decline offers to find out the reason for their decision and to

Review of these data to plan the next year course.

Pilot a new part-time programme from academic year 2014-15; monitor and review student data

PJT, Joanna Pajerska, ICS Education Administrator

Starting from next academic year – 2014-15

• Information related to reasons for not acceptance. Actions in place in response to feedback

• Appropriate gender balance for the new intakes and monitor results between female: male part-time: full-

Qualitative data requested and response rate was very low; anecdotal data suggests the main reason is fee level.

No part-time





Progress To Date

New part-time programme

identify and address any potential reason for their choice related to inequality

also in consideration of the declining reasons.

time students students enrolled in 2014-15

2.7 Postgraduate research programme student outcomes. Information is currently provided centrally by UCL, but it is not as good as it could be.

MD(Res) and PhD programme students came from different Institutions at the time of ICS formation, which made it difficult to monitor consistently this group.

• Collect good quality data and outcomes from prospective students registered for these programmes: record of reports and outcomes from annual individual meetings, MPhil/PhD upgrade time and pass/fail rate, PhD final outcome and time to award

• Work with UCL’s Student Services to ensure good data quality

SG to gather current student information

Joanna Pajerska to collect prospective data

Retrospective data: June 2014

Prospective data: starting from next academic year – 2014-15

• Information on female:male outcomes from current students.

• Information for prospective students

Significant improvement in data quality

2.8 Paternity leave. Currently not monitored.

UCL has recently introduced a formal procedure to request and monitor paternity leave. 2 men in the Institute have

Spread information about paternity leave through ICS mailing list.

Require formal requests to be filed in order to ensure these data are monitored in future.

Add information about

Institute Administration

April 2014 All instances of paternity leave monitored and recorded in 2014 onwards. Increased number of men taking the full 4 weeks leave.

Achieved – all instances are monitored; four men have taken paternity leave





Progress To Date

recently applied paternity leave to all Job Descriptions and Induction Pack

Promote 4 weeks paternity leave, and additional paternity leave to staff

Information is in job pack; all current staff have been advised by Institute and by UCL

2.9 Flexible working Add information to job description, staff handbook and to staff appraisal documents

Pilot a ‘just say yes’ approach: trial period for all requests made under the formal UCL process. At the end of the trial period, successful arrangements will continue


Starting from September 2014

Men and women report through ICS staff survey that they work flexibly, with satisfactory results, or >80% understand how to request flexible working

Information is in recruitment material and on website

No formal approaches have been recorded but anecdotal data shows suggests informal requests continue to be made and approved

3. RECRUITMENT

3.1 Increase numbers of women externally recruited to senior research grades

This has been commenced by the appointment of a female Professor, a female Lecturer promoted to Senior Lecturer in the next year,

Make an active effort to head hunt outstanding female applicants to attain gender balance

State clearly in all adverts the gender neutrality of the recruitment and interview process

Academic Appointments Committee, SMG

Next 2-3 years Increase the number of women applying for senior positions to rectify the imbalance at professorial and reader level

Ongoing

All adverts give clear messages about our commitment to equality and Athena





Progress To Date

and more recently a female clinical consultant cardiologist to a Senior Lecturer post

3.2 Transparent recruitment process

Job descriptions are now finalised at Institute level to ensure that they contain an appropriate equality statement and information about the Institute’s commitment to Athena SWAN; to ensure that they are free from gender (and other) impartiality; and to ensure that the person

Introduction of an ICS pack for job advertisement, shortlisting and interview panels to be circulated to all staff.

Review of recruitment material to outline staff benefits and maternity leave policy, which will be added to all job descriptions and ICS pack

Increase the number of staff members who undergo Unconscious Bias training and keep a register of this (using a different facilitator or the new training being developed by UCL)


Starting in the new academic year 2014-15

No bias evident in annual analysis of recruitment data (% female applicants reflect % female in applicant pool) Increase in number of women applying for jobs at ICS due to improved communication of benefits.

Job pack delayed due to changes in the FTE of its author

Non-clinical data shows improvement; clinical recruitment continues to conform to historical trends of inequality

Review and update of material on hold

25% of SMG have undergone unconscious bias training





Progress To Date

specification is in line with UCL’s expectations for a job at that level.

Senior management at ICS have done Unconscious Bias training.

3.3 Induction of new staff members

Staff inductions

are already

performed, but

vary by site

Induction of all new starters with one of our administrator team within their first month to inform them about UCL and ICS guidelines, outlining recommended training opportunities, career development and promotion procedures.

All new staff to undertake Equality and Diversity training within six weeks of appointment. The Institute will continue to monitor and ensure


Standardised inductions from October

ICS Staff Handbook ready in September 2014

100% of staff inductions carried out for new appointments

ICS Staff Handbook o be circulated to all existing staff, as well as new staff

All new starters have completed online E&D training

Institute Manager inductions offered to all new staff (uptake circa 50%)

Handbook delayed due to reduced capacity in admin team

100% completion rate





Progress To Date

that this training is completed and staff members who have a probation period cannot be confirmed in post until this training has been done

Develop an ICS Staff Handbook

4. PROMOTION, MENTORING, CAREER DEVELOPMENT

4.1 Limited awareness amongst early career staff, but also at more senior levels, of the requirements for promotion

Employees’ PIs were alerted for their view on the individual’s suitability for promotion in the last round, and information was provided about the assessment criteria

Circulate relevant documents directly to all staff eligible for promotion.

Advertise the UCL promotion workshops

Organise a workshop dedicated to UCL promotion criteria as part of the next ICS ‘get together’ staff event.

Invite research staff to take part in the internal review process

Adapt the appraisal process to ensure that

AH, SG, Rikke Osterlund

Starting August 2014

Increase number of women applying for promotion and being successful.

Improved feedback on promotions in the next ICS staff survey – increased awareness of the promotion process % in 2014 survey.

Data shows increase in successful applications

Much improved feedback on how well processes are understood





Progress To Date

it specifically addresses promotions

Assess the impact of part-time working on promotion and action that special attention is given to this group so that they are not jeopardised by their work pattern

No obvious impact – two part-time female members of staff were promoted last year

4.2 Career progression process information

Event for a focus group of female clinicians and non-clinicians to identify issues with career progression.

Speed mentoring activity

PJT 7th

July, 2014, annual thereafter

Through positive evaluation of events at the time of delivery

4.3 Career development afternoons for MSc and PhD students

Successful annual presentation of the wide range of career options

Introduce an evaluation and feedback form which will be collated and analysed to enable assessment and development of the careers day

PJT, AW Jan 2015 Positive feedback from these meetings. Content adapted in response to feedback where necessary

Event held; informal feedback is that it was well received and successful

4.4 PhD and Postdocs career development support

A programme has been set up within ICS, in particular towards fellowship

‘Fellowship day’ planned for 27th May 2014 with key funding bodies.

Set up mock interviews before the

PJT, AH, SMG May 2014 and annually: ‘Fellowship day’.

Starting with the next

Improvement in staff satisfaction regarding career development reported by this key transition group in the next ICS staff survey (October

Fellowship day held jointly with Institute of Child Health – feedback was positive

All fellowship





Progress To Date

applications interview itself to give applicants feedback and improve their chances of a successful application

Set up a buddy mentoring scheme for PhDs and Postdocs in ICS, to improve the support given to PhDs and Postdocs who have different needs, by establishing separate PhD ad Postdoc small mentoring groups led by senior staff members with opportunity for individual mentoring if required

fellowship applications within ICS: mock interviews (responsive mode)

2014) by 20%.

Increase in the number of fellowship applications and success in particular female applicants.

% of students who have accessed the buddy scheme

Positive feedback from staff through the ICS survey

applications are fully supported and mock interviews are planned into our application process

Mentoring scheme now up and running – feedback from training sessions was entirely positive

4.5 Individual career development support

Advertise UCL Careers Service and the one-to-one appointment with a Careers Advisor

Implementation of the UCL policy to offer a rolling programme of ‘career advice surgeries’

Create a fund to financially support career development

SG, SMG December 2015 Improvement in staff satisfaction regarding career development reported by this key transition group in the next ICS staff survey (October 2014) by 20%.

Careers surgeries running monthly since January 2015; uptake has been slow but is increasing.

There is a dedicated Athena SWAN budget from 2015-





Progress To Date

opportunities such as Teaching and Learning in Higher and Professional Education certificate, external training course, etc., with 50-50 split between female and male applicants

16 to support gender equality activity, which can include training

4.6 Lack of funding sources for women who have taken career breaks and following one round of return to work fellowship (key career transition point)

Meeting organised with BHF to outline this issue and discuss the removal of the age limitation on their intermediate fellowships, or the opening of a new scheme specifically for this group of female researchers

AH Meeting in April 2014

BHF change in the next 2 years

BHF change in their fellowships scheme regulations or improve communication of policy

4.7 Assessment of the appraisal process

ICS has moved to an annual appraisal cycle rather than the UCL-required two-year cycle as we see appraisal as an essential mechanism to support individual career

Monitor appraisals to ensure that they are done regularly with review of career development and potential promotion assessment, using existing UCL tools and quality checking before Director sign-off

Ensure that both the appraise and appraiser

All senior staff (appraiser update pack)

All staff through pre-appraisal pack guidance.

September 2014 onwards

Improve the quality of the appraisal process with cultural change and transparency of opportunities. Improve promotion rate of women. 90% appraisal completion rate each year Increased satisfaction with the appraisal process in the ICS staff survey

Appraisal aide memoir has been circulated to all managers

The rate of recorded appraisals has dropped to 68% but the carrying out of appraisals is higher

Survey showed significant increases in satsfaction





Progress To Date

development, and pivotal in changing the % women representation in senior positions as well as in all grades of career progression.

are trained to optimise the promotion process

Advertise training courses for appraiser and appraisee by email to all ICS staff

5. PREGNANCY, MATERNITY LEAVE AND RETURN TO WORK

5.1 Improve information about pregnancy, maternity leave and return to work issues which are not well disseminated in UCL. When a staff member advises her manager that she is pregnant, the manager contacts the Institute admin team, who offer to meet with the individual to discuss the maternity options.

A forum has been set up to understand the issues experienced by ICS women during pregnancy and on returning to work

Organise a bi-monthly meeting with the ICS women interested in this subject.

Organise a mailing list where women can exchange information and share experiences

Include information such as facilities available at UCL e.g. for expressing milk, contractual issues, funding information during maternity leave especially for those researchers sponsored by grants, etc. in the induction pack.

Include UCL maternity policy on the ICS

PJT to set up bi-monthly meeting

PJT, SS, Rikke Osterlund and Elaine McDonald to disseminate information

April 2014 next meeting

September 2014: information pack

Improve information available to women thinking of becoming pregnant and informing details to those already pregnant or on maternity leave. But more importantly to support women in these situations Positive feedback from the bi-monthly meetings, and from the ICS survey.

Meetings ongoing as planned

Facilities information is widely shared

Maternity policy is on website





Progress To Date

However, women cannot easily access practical information especially during planning of pregnancy or before communicating the pregnancy to the line manager

website and in the new Induction Pack.

Send the information pack to all existing staff.

5.2 Set up small buddy mentoring groups led by senior staff in relation to pregnancy and maternity.

Buddy mentoring groups work well for women planning for pregnancy, pregnant, and returning to work after maternity leave to support each other and deal with mutual issues.

PJT April 2015 Help support women through this period of pregnancy, maternity leave and return to work so they do not feel isolated. Positive feedback via the ICS survey

N/A

5.3 Barriers for clinical staff in specific male dominated environments

Female clinical role models have been introduced into MBBS teaching

Work with the relevant NHS Trusts to help with these issues, by introducing role models in teaching, Continuing Professional Development, seminars and conferences

PJT and SS January 2015 Female staff are better equipped to develop in a clinical as well as an academic setting

On hold due to major reorganisation of cardiology clinical services – will re-visit in October 2015


6. ORGANISATION & CULTURE

6.1 Time of work meetings

Monthly SMG used to meet at 7.30am, a common time for clinical cardiology but unusual for academics. This was moved to 9.00am to help accommodate the needs of staff with childcare responsibilities.

Meetings organised centrally for specific committees now go through a Doodle poll

Review of SMG time to be moved to core hours for some meetings, when compatible with clinical commitments

Heads of laboratories to reschedule their Centre meetings in core working times from 10am to 4.00pm.

Empower staff to choose optimal meeting times through the use of web tools such as Doodle poll at local level

Whole SAT Starting from May 2014

Women report improved satisfaction regarding time of work meetings in ICS staff survey

All centre meetings held during core hours

Improvement recorded

Meetings comply with core hours policy

6.2 Time of social gatherings

ICS ‘get together’ staff events in 2012 and 2013 were held during the afternoon

Work with the different NHS Trust sites to ensure that clinical duties are organised to allow staff to participate in these events.

SMG June 2014 Positive feedback via the ICS survey

Survey shows increase in satisfaction


Encourage social meetings such as Christmas Parties to be organised at lunch time or start around 4.00pm. When not possible, the meetings need to be organised well in advance to enable parents/carers to plan for childcare and support

Appendix B – Action Plan 2015-2018

Issue and area for action identified

Actions Timescale Accountability (SAT member)

Responsibility Success measure over next 3 years

2. AWARENESS & SAT

2.1 Partnership with cardiovascular sciences at QMUL

Set up series of joint meetings and working groups with sister SAT to create shared Athena SWAN agenda. This includes identification of common areas of action, adoption of best practice, recognition for the need for continued site specific activity.

September 2015 – ongoing

RP Academic cardiologists Respective Institute Directors

Joint Athena SWAN strategy for partnered organisation

2.2 Refresh and extend SAT membership

Invite representation from JFAG, ensure all research groups represented

June 2015 NC Research group leads JFAG

Larger SAT (12 members), with gender balance, good representation from different staff groups and different ICS sites and a student member

3. STUDENTS AND STAFF

3.1 Attract women to apply for new iBSc course

Include positive female role models and images in the course booklet and electronic material, ensure female representation when publicising the course at the iBSc fair

January 2016 AW, SG Lucie Clapp (course director)

Numbers of enquiries, applications and acceptances of women compared to all women on the MBBS course by year

3.2 Completion rate for MSc

Review data on an annual basis Ongoing AW Education administrator

100% completion rate





3.3 Gender balance on PhD interview panel

Monitor and refresh membership as necessary

Ongoing AW Primary Supervisor and education administrator)

At least 25% of the committee is female

3.4 Low PhD offer rate to women

Review historic and current score sheets against criteria, offer training as necessary

June 2015 AW Graduate Tutor (research)

Improve offer rate to at least 60%

3.5 PhD completion rate

Review mean completion rate and % completing within 4 years

June 2015 AW Graduate Tutor (research) and education administrator

100% completion rate by 4 years

3.6 Low recruitment of female clinical cardiologists

Review shortlisting and interview scoresheets against job criteria and CVs, focus group with senior cardiologists to detect biases.

February 2016 NC Institute Manager Clinical cardiologists

Increase recruitment of female clinical cardiologists at all levels to 33%

3.7 Identify suitable female clinical candidates

Search committee June 2015 AH NC, senior clinical academics

Ensure at least one female candidate for core funded post, identify women to apply for fellowships

3.8 Ensure high quality submissions for fellowships

Mentoring, grant review and mock interview infrastructure

September 2015 and ongoing

NC Research group leads JFAG

Increase the number of applications by 50% and success rate to 70%





3.9 Increase numbers of women promoted successfully

Pro-active identification and support through the process


SG Research group leads and managers

Increase numbers and success rate of female promotions (50% of all promotions should be women)

3.10

Few women in leadership roles

Prepare women for leadership through nomination to college wide leadership course, provide leadership support through mentoring and identify women to fill roles within and outside the university


AH Research group leads Increased numbers of women attending leadership course and appointed to leadership roles

3.11

Mentoring scheme Review of mentoring scheme 12 months after inception, grow numbers of mentors and mentees, create review of mentoring

March 2016 and ongoing

AW JFAG Double number of mentor-mentee pairs, high quality data on impact of mentoring

3.12

Early career support

Enlarge early career support schemes alone and in collaboration with other faculties

September 2015 ongoing

SG Research group leads JFAG

Increase early career support activities and create structures for monitoring

3.13

Promote policies on flexible working, parental leave

Dissemination activities at group meetings, electronic & written material and 1:1 advice. Include policies in new ICS Handbook

June 2015 ongoing

SG MH Increase uptake of parental leave, satisfaction with maternal leave support and return to work, greater acceptability of flexible working

3.14

Establish reasons for leaving

Exit survey and analysis to form basis of a plan of action

August 2015 AH SG Obtain high quality data on reasons for leaving, and create a responsive plan; male and female voluntary





turnover to be proportionate

4. SUPPORTING & ADVANCING CAREERS

4.1 Ensuring fair recruitment – recruiter skills

Academics and staff managers to refresh recruitment skills every three years

October 2017

NC SG 100% have been refreshed – recorded on HR training database

4.2 Ensuring fair recruitment - reducing unconscious bias

All academic staff to have participated in a relevant training session to be organised and funded by the Institute

December 2015

AH SG All current staff are recorded as having attended; all new academic staff to undertake it within first 6 months

4.3 Ensuring fair recruitment – female contact during application stage

Applicants to be given the option to speak to a woman when contacting us about a job

All posts advertised from October 2015

AH SG Data from local HR team shows all adverts give the option

4.4 Ensuring fair recruitment – understanding barriers in academic cardiology

Run a focus group with clinical academic cardiologists to identify why the reasons for the high attrition rate of women during recruitment. Develop an action plan to address the identified issues

By January 2016

SG MH Reasons identified Relevant action plan in place Offer rate to women to be at least equivalent as to men 33% of clinical cardiology staff at all grades to be women





4.5 Ensuring fair recruitment – supporting women cardiologists

We will develop a relationship with ‘Women in Cardiology’ section of the British Cardiovascular Society

March 2016 RP MH ICS cardiology posts publicised by WiC Joint programme of activity with appropriate measures of success e.g. participant satisfaction Better recruitment outcomes as in 4.4

4.6

Improving promotions - process

Bring forward research promotion cycle by one month to all more time to prepare; align with senior promotions activity; and maximise time to identify funding

September 2015

AH SG Increase in numbers providing their CV for consideration to 40% of eligible staff

4.7 Improving promotions – understanding how it works

Annual workshop prior to the promotions round to explain the process and criteria

September 2015

AH SG Survey continues to show improvements in understanding Increase in applications to 40% of eligible staff

4.8 Improving promotions - funding

Host our own annual event on fellowships and promote other departments’ events

Annually in April from 2016

AH NC Positive feedback from sessions Increase in number of fellowship applications (at least 5 per year)





Increase in number of people promoted (at least 3 each year)

4.9 Better appraisals The whole range of activity needs to be considered at appraisals, not just research

By October 2016

SG Group leads and managers

Quality monitoring data will be collected to show key issues have been addressed Recorded appraisal rate exceeds 90% target

4.10 Improving Induction and ensuring current staff have sufficient knowledge about training

Staff handbook June 2016 SG Institute Admin team As evidenced by survey on survey increases: Improved training rates Improved understanding of processes and benefits Improved overall satisfaction in working for the Institute

4.11 Supporting female students – career development

Ensure that the information we give and the sessions we run are fit for purpose

January 2016 then at least annually

NC AW Increased attendance at sessions Introduction of formal feedback shows satisfaction of 70% Poor feedback is taken on and changes are made





4.12 Supporting staff and students - mentoring

Monitor and evaluate the success of our current mentoring scheme Run an annual session to allow new participants

October 2015 - ongoing

SC AW 33% of Institute staff and PGR students to have mentoring relationships At least 10 new people attend the training each year Training feedback is positive Successive surveys show improvements on satisfaction with mentoring arrangements

4.13 Committees – increased female representation

Governance structure to be reviewed and opportunities for women representation to increase

Review under way – to be completed in line with development of joint Institute

AH SMG Decision making committees have proportionate representation of women on them e.g. SMG (or replacement) to have at least 37% women

5. ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

5.1 Recognition of ethnic diversity in institute and university workforce

Extend Athena SWAN culture to maximise opportunities for Black and Ethnic Minorities by analysing and presenting data on ethnicity in promotion and recruitment, identify role models and target individuals for mentoring and support

2017 AH SAT Recognition of support for Black and Ethnic Minority Groups in the staff survey

Documents

Athena SWAN Silver department award application ICS Silver...To integrate our Athena SWAN agenda with our aim to maximise opportunity for individuals from Black and Minority ethnic