The Earth Science and Engineering (ESE) department at Imperial College London has been awarded the Athena Swan Silver Award, recognising its sustained commitment to advancing gender equality across all its operations. This significant achievement highlights the department's progress in addressing career barriers for women in science, engineering, and academia.
Sophia Quazi, ESE's Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Coordinator, expressed pride in the award, stating, “Achieving Athena Swan Silver is a very proud moment for us and this award belongs to everyone in the department who has worked to make our culture more inclusive. It also gives us the momentum to keep pushing forward with our collective efforts to make a difference and to continue holding ourselves to a high standard on gender equality.”
The Athena Swan awards, administered by Advance HE, form a national framework for higher education institutions committed to gender equality. ESE previously held a Bronze award since 2021, which laid the groundwork for its current success. The Silver award signifies that the department has not only identified challenges but has also implemented evidence-based changes and demonstrated their impact.
This recognition reflects ESE's strategic, long-term approach to enhancing representation, progression, and workplace culture. Key initiatives have focused on recruitment and promotion practices, ensuring transparency, fairness, and the mitigation of unconscious bias. The department's Silver action plan prioritises the representation of women, awareness, transparency, and career development.
EDI principles are now integrated into ESE's daily operations, supported by improved data collection and monitoring for workload allocation, committee appointments, and leadership opportunities. Efforts have also been made to increase the visibility of women in senior positions, providing crucial role models for students and junior staff.
The Athena Swan Silver Award also acknowledges that this work is ongoing. ESE is committed to building on its progress and addressing remaining inequalities. The department joins a growing number of UK earth science and engineering departments holding Silver status, contributing to efforts to tackle gender imbalances prevalent in geoscience and engineering fields, particularly in senior roles.
Looking forward, ESE plans to strengthen its pipeline of female talent from undergraduate to professorial levels, expand support for underrepresented groups with intersecting identities, and maintain transparent reporting on its progress.
