THE Athena SWAN Silver award was awarded to University of Limerick’s Department of Physics.
The award is granted in recognition of the positive impact of actions that a institute has undertaken to achieve gender equality amongst staff and students in Higher Education.
UL’s Department of Physics have highlighted a range of impact driven activities and initiatives, including extensive outreach activity to encourage female students to take physics as a Leaving Cert subject and study the subject at undergraduate level.
We are dedicated to achieving gender equality amongst staff & students
Our Athena SWAN Silver Award – the first ever in Ireland – is a testament to the work being undertaken at UL, and we will continue to strive for morehttps://t.co/5iyuHeRIjs#IWD2022 #InternationalWomensDay pic.twitter.com/mm8gaxOQ9z
— University Of Limerick (@UL) March 8, 2022
The physics department has seen an increase in female undergraduates from 37% to 54%, supporting their aim to increase the number of female physics teachers in Ireland.
“In Ireland, just over a quarter of students taking Leaving Certificate physics are female. Since 2017, we have put practices and career progression measures in place to create impacts in increasing recruitment, development and participation of underrepresented groups in physics programmes.
Higher numbers of women taking up physics education courses aligns with the Government’s recent investment in increasing the number of physics teachers in Ireland”, said Dr Deirdre Ní Eidhin, Senior Technical Officer of the Department of Physics and the co-chair of its Self-Assessment Team.
The Department of Nursing and Midwifery at UL were also successful, being awarded a bronze award in addition to two award renewals, which brings the total number of UL Athen SWAN awards to 14.
“The impact of embedding Athena SWAN in UL has ensured that gender equality is core to the business of every department. Our overall representation at senior academic grades has grown.
In particular the number of women at Associate Professors level (Professor B level) has increased from 6 in 2014 to 24 and at 39% is above the national average of 37% ensuring we are well positioned to increase the percentage of female full professors in the coming years,” said Dr Marie Connolly, UL Director Human Rights, Equality, Diversity & Inclusion.
Simon Harris TD, Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, said, “Advancing gender equality across Higher and Further Education is a priority for my department.
Today’s announcement of 21 new Athena SWAN awards demonstrates the ongoing commitment of our higher education institutions to improving gender equality.
I’d like to particularly commend the Department of Physics in the University of Limerick for achieving the first Silver Award awarded to a department in Ireland and hope to see more departments reaching this milestone in the coming years.”
