Introduction

The Department of Chemistry's approach to gender equality over the past decade

The Athena SWAN Working Group looks at current practices and procedures within the Department and considers ways of improving these to ensure fairness for all staff and students and raise awareness of equality and diversity.  Examples of best practice are already embedded in many of the Department’s activities but there are many areas where improvements can still be made.

Membership of Athena SWAN working group: Robin Perutz (Chair), Luisa Ciano (Graduate student Representative), Helen Coombs, Sue Couling, Caroline Dessent,  Verena Gortz, Kirsty Penkman, Paul Walton, Katie Read / Ruth Purvis (Post-doc Representative)

The Department has put in place the following polices and procedures for staff including:

Work within the Department of Chemistry on these issues has been pushed forward by the Heads of Departments Professors Bruce Gilbert, Robin Perutz, Paul Walton and Richard Taylor. Thanks also to Caroline Fox from Athena Forum and Sean McWhinnie of Oxford Research and Policy.

• Fair recruitment including encouragement of female applicants
• Family friendly policies including formal and informal flexible working
• Transparency of finance and transparency of appointments
• Sensitive chairing of committees
• Meetings and seminars at family friendly times
• Seek women seminar speakers and external examiners
• Diversity training during induction
• Pro-active career planning for PhDs and postdocs
• Maternity Leave policy
• Regular check of male/female ratio in thesis advisory panels, external examiners, seminar speakers etc

We don't have a senior management team taking all the major decisions. Instead we have a mix of promoted staff and young lecturers on our  Research Committee, Planning Group, Head of Department's Advisory group etc.

 Academic Group Leaders have a responsibility for personnel issues in their area including equality.

 We have a Graduate and Postdoctoral Training Officer Role to address:

• negative impact of short-term contracts,
• obstacles in transition from PhD to academic career
• personal and professional development
• mentoring schemes
• the roles and responsibilities of  contract researchers & principal investigators

An e-newsletter informs and celebrates success across the Department

 The Department encourages regular social events including:

• a mixed cricket team, a 5-a-side football league
• Annual Family Barbecue and cricket/rounders match
• Departmental parties and drinks to celebrate successes

 Benefits (see: RSC Good practice in Chemistry Departments)

1. Good practice benefits all staff and students. Bad practice adversely affects women’s careers more than men’s.
2. The best departments don’t target measures specifically at women. Good practice is about processes that are fair, flexible, accessible and transparent to all.
3. Good practice departments appear able to attract and retain women far better than other departments
4. There is no evidence that good practice affects scientific excellence. In contrast,the detrimental effects of bad practice are incremental.
5. Leadership from the top with the HoD as champion is critical.
6. Young men and women with families have different expectations from their older colleagues. The younger staff careers cannot thrive unless the working culture reflects the reality of dual career partnerships.
7. Successful action is based on good planning.

Successes

Recent Sucesses

Highlights

Highlights from the 2013 Gold re-submission include:

• Increased flexible working
• Increased postgraduate recruitment
• 100% return rate from maternity leave
• Improvements in researcher induction, committee chairing, the Athena website, and numbers of undergraduate external examiners
• Departmental Maternity/Paternity policy
• Introduction of termly Research Fora
• Response to staff surveys
• Equality and Diversity brief for academic staff leaders
• Case Studies of staff within the Department
• Improvement in the percentage of females at undergraduate, postgraduate and lecturer levels all now at approximately 45%

The figure below shows the pipeline percentages of females in York Chemistry in 2012/13. There is no drop off between undergraduate and graduate students but a fall to research staff and this is an area which the Athena SWAN working group will try to address over the next 3 years.‌ 

Highlights from our 2007 and 2010 Athena SWAN submissions

• Increasing percentage of  female PhD students
• Higher performance of female students compared to male students graduating from MChem
• Small increases in total female academic staff -and percentages of women on senior grades
• Good promotion rates for female academics
• Successful applications for flexible working at all levels.
• Pump priming funds to post-docs – one female fund winner now a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellow
• 30% of Departmental seminars given by women in 2008/09
• HoD set up group to develop flexible working policy.
• Activities disseminating the Athena SWAN Charter to other departments and other institutions

Chemistry Athena SWAN Newsletter May 2013 (PDF , 693kb)

Chemistry Athena SWAN Newsletter February 2012 (PDF , 313kb)

Chemistry Athena SWAN Newsletter November 2012 (PDF , 372kb)

Initiatives

Recent Initiatives

• Departmental athena SWAN newsletter prepared and circulated
• Departmental Maternity Policy that promotes good practice
• Staff Survey: Action Plan
• Promotion of increased transparency in allocation of academic admin roles
• Post-Doctoral Fellows encouraged to bid for vacation bursaries
• Post-Doctoral Fellow representative on Board of Studies
• Careers events held for early career researchers
• Encouraging uptake of training opportunities to all staff
• Research Fora held once a term for all academic staff
• Terms of reference of Academic Group Leaders clarified
• Staff from other Departments now attend Chemistry Athena SWAN working group meetings and vice versa
• Improvements in Induction packs for all new staff
• Grant writing session including knowledge transfer and commercialisation planned

Case Studies

Case Studies

Dr Jacqui Hamilton

‌‌

Dr Jacqui Hamilton was appointed as lecturer in the Department in 2008 She was in interviewed by Prof Lucy Carpenter on her maternity leave

Jacqui returned from 9 months maternity leave in Sept 2011, and now works 3 days a week whilst her son Max (now nearly 18 months old) goes to nursery.

In the last 2 months before her baby was due, Jacqui worked very hard to finalise papers and grant submissions.  She was an applicant on 3 grant applications during this time, of which 2 were subsequently funded.  She even submitted a grant as co-Investigator whilst on maternity leave, having written the text beforehand!

The only downside to this was handling referee reports from the submitted papers a couple of months down the line with a young baby to look after… However, the substantial effort put in has certainly paid off, although coping with research, teaching and numerous hospital visits in the last few weeks of pregnancy was no mean feat.

Whilst away, Jacqui benefitted from colleagues within the Atmospheric Chemistry group to keep an eye on research activities, with Ally Lewis managing her PhD students.  Jacqui notes that one of the challenges of coming back to academic work is catching up with the rapidly changing research arena.  

Another concerns the nature of part-time working, in that it is very hard to schedule un-timetabled teaching activities (e.g. tutorials) with limited flexibility on timing.  In order to give her more time to fit in her numerous responsibilities, Jacqui will start working 4 days a week from June this year.   Despite the challenges, Jacqui is successfully combining parenthood and academia.

The tricks? Become (even) more efficient and organised, get used to little sleep, write grant applications at strange times, and make the most of the flexibility of academic work!

Jacqui is currently benefitting from a term’s leave from admin and teaching responsibilities after being encouraged and supported by the Department to apply for funding from the University Development Fund for Early Career Researchers.

Louise Summerton

Louise Summerton has worked in the Department since 2003 and looks after the Training, Education and Networks projects and initiatives of the Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence (GCCE) within the Department of Chemistry.

Louise manages and coordinates all training, education and networking activities of the GC CE.  This includes identifying funding opportunities and securing funding; establishing and supporting national and international networks to promote green and sustainable chemistry; development of educational and training resources for use at all levels in GCCE projects and activities; and input into the MSc in Green Chemistry and Sustainable Industrial Technology.

Louise says:

Since 2008 I have had two periods of maternity leave lasting 10 months each time to care for my two children, Katie (now 4) and Thomas (20 months).  Upon returning to work in April 2009, I began working part-time – 2.5 days a week.  After my second maternity leave, I changed my working pattern again and increased my hours to three full days.  From a personal perspective, I found it better to work full days rather than half-days.  Getting two small children dressed and ready for nursery and driving 17 miles to work is no mean feat, and it made more sense to stay for a whole day!

Initially I found it difficult to adjust to working part-time, especially due to restrictions for scheduling/attending meetings and catching up on developments from the second half of the week.  Things move at a fast pace and quite often Monday mornings can feel like returning after a holiday due to the volume of emails!  I now find it beneficial to check my emails intermittently from home (when the children are asleep!) which allows me to keep on top of things and act on any urgent matters. 

Working part-time demands a high level of organisation skills and forward planning is essential as deadlines can approach much faster when you don’t work Thursdays and Fridays!  Working part-time, although clichéd, does feel like having the ‘best of both worlds’ – I get to spend time with my children, but also apply myself to various challenges at work such as writing grant applications.

My working arrangements are likely to change again in September this year when my daughter starts school, and I feel fortunate to have a supportive working environment which allows me to balance my responsibilities at work and at home.

Dr Katie Read

Dr Katie Read has worked in the Chemistry department as a National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) post-doctoral researcher since 2005. Her husband has also worked in the department (albeit in a different research group) since 2003. Katie’s work involved the set-up and now the management of an atmospheric monitoring Observatory in Cape Verde. In the initial years this role involved a significant amount of travel to Cape Verde to get the measurements in the Observatory established.

Since starting at the University of York Katie has taken two periods of maternity leave. Her first child Nina was born in January 2010, 6 weeks early which meant she had to spend some time in the Special Care Baby Unit (SCBU). The University and department were very supportive in allowing flexibility to take a premature maternity leave and particularly in her husband’s case allowing him to split his paternity leave between then and when Nina actually came home from hospital. Returning to work 9 months later Katie was supported and even encouraged to start on a part-time basis
and worked for 3 months at 2.5 days a week.

Katie says: “Prior to going on maternity I had been working quite independently but whilst I was away there had been the need to set up a team in order to handle the workload. Although the increased number of meetings and less work time was difficult to adjust to when I returned (I felt that I was always in meetings and never got any actual work done….!), the “team” set-up has massively benefitted me in the long-term with the result that I am now much more supported in my position. It perhaps needed me to go on maternity so that people could see how much there had become to do with the Observatory over the years!”

Later Katie increased her work time to 4 days a week and then in April 2012 took a second period of maternity when her son Leighton was born. She returned to work in November 2012 on 3 days per week with the option open to return to 4 days or even full time later in the year.

“There has always been and continues to be, a large amount of flexibility with my position. The department supported me really well in the initial few weeks back at work after maternity leave when nursery bugs seemed to overtake my life and more time off was needed. With developments in remote monitoring and improved internet connections together with more experienced local Cape Verdean staff, over the years the trips to the Observatory have become significantly more routine and focussed and trips can be confined to just one week. I am lucky that it is possible to flexibly plan
these trips around my husband’s travel-heavy schedule and so childcare options are made much simpler! Since my second period of maternity my role has been redefined as “Technical Specialist for the Observatory”. This is less of a research position but recognises my strengths in the management of the Observatory as a whole. I feel confident that my seniors care about both my career as a scientist and personal needs as a mother and I feel very secure in my position in the department.”

Dr Ruth Purvis

Ruth Purvis works for the National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and been based in the department since 2008.  
She is a scientist in the Facility for Ground Based Measurements (FGAM) and runs and develops instruments that measure trace gases in the atmosphere both on the ground and in the air; analyses long term aircraft data; coordinates aircraft working groups; and teaches on the NCAS atmospheric summer school.

Ruth says:

“I have had one period of maternity leave since joining the department in September 2008. I have found the whole experience of maternity leave and returning to work very good.  I found work to be very flexible and was not worried about asking about returning part time. I had Tom in October 2011 and initially came back to work in June two days a week.  After a couple of months I increased this to four days a week.

I initially found working part-time difficult, after working full time for so long I expected myself to be able to do so much more than time allowed.   I think you have to be more organised and time management is very important, both at home and at work.

Spending extra time at home with Tom is great but I also enjoy coming into work, a hot cup of tea is something I always look forward to.  I think I am lucky in that respect as a lot of the people I work with are good friends and I still saw them during my maternity leave.  There was not the dread of returning to work after several months off, but it was a bit scary.  As I left in the September, new students had started and become established in my absence and it sometimes felt that I was the newbie.

Catching up with the science has been a major challenge, sometimes you forget that things move on while you are away.  Luckily, there was a NCAS staff meeting my first month back which was extremely useful as I could listen to what colleagues had been up to the previous year and what new science they had been involved in.

Another challenge with balancing work and family is time spent away working.  In the past I have been involved with lots of field campaigns, which always involve several weeks working away from home, often in a different country.  So far I have taught on a NCAS Summer School that involved me being in Arran, Scotland, for a week but thankfully my parents booked a cottage ten miles away so I was still able to spend some time with Tom.  I am sure I will find it hard the first time I have to work away for a period of time”

Professor Paul Walton

Professor Paul Walton: 2004-2010 Head of Department

Equality is a way of life in the department. I don’t think many of us would have said that 20 years ago, but many of us say it now. Over the preceding years many people had started to question whether we were as equal as it we could be as a department. When we realised that we could make things better, then action was taken. But, it was all given real impetus in 2000 when Robin became HoD, through the creation of new initiatives and making equality a leitmotif of his time as HoD. This made a big difference in culture. And, by the time I began as HoD myself in 2004, the major momentum had been created and all I needed to do was to keep it rolling along within the department and then to start to export what we had learned.

The wider promotion of equality has been then thing that has kept me busy on the equality front over the last 4 years or so. It’s a real joy to see equality and Athena Swan now being taken so seriously elsewhere and it’s a privilege to be part of the process of supporting our academic colleagues in other institutions go through the thinking.

I have been fortunate to always had excellent male and female colleagues, and make and female graduate students and postdocs in my research group. These folks, along with my friends and family, have taught me the essentials of equality which so depends on people creating a culture of support and fairness. Something that many of us have benefitted from here at York.

Lucy Carpenter

Professor Lucy Carpenter has worked in the Department since 2000, was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2006 then Chair in 2009 and is now Head of Physical Chemistry. She is an Atmospheric Chemist, specializing in the chemistry of the clean marine atmosphere and in natural emissions of volatile organic compounds.

Lucy says:

"Since 2003 I have had two periods of maternity leave lasting 5 and 6 months to care for my two children, Josie (10) and Finlay (nearly 7). As anyone who has been through it knows, returning to work after maternity leave is both highly emotional and stressful! However the Department was very supportive in allowing me to use holiday time to return half time for the first few months, which really helped. I did then return full-time for a while with my first child Josie, but quickly realized that was not going to work well for us, especially as we were commuting from Leeds! Life became easier after a working move to 4 days a week and a house move to York.

"When I was on maternity leave with Finlay, things were much easier in part because my husband Ally Lewis had moved to the Department and, as he works in a similar field, was able to co-supervise PhD students and post docs whilst I was away. Having colleagues to help co-supervise your group whilst away is a really large bonus, and helps reduce worry that things will be out of control at work (as well as possibly at home)!

"Soon after returning to work in 2006, I was awarded a consortium grant to examine halogen processes in the Canadian Arctic. All well and good, but it meant leaving the children behind in early 2008 (ages 2 and 6) for 3 weeks to lead a field experiment near Hudson Bay. This was a large concern for me in the months leading up to the trip, but as it turned out, both I - and more importantly they - did absolutely fine. Although I suspect some heavy spoiling from grandparents helped out a bit too. I now have another field trip approaching – this time leading an Arctic cruise into the Greenland ice edge over the summer of 2013, and now my children are 10 and nearly 7 they can be won over quite easily by the promise of a couple of visits to KFC in my absence!

"Once the children had started school I changed to reduced hours but over 5 days a week so I can leave early on usually 3 days to pick them up after school. Thank goodness for the advent of Google Calendar, which allows our family to figure out who is doing what when, both work and outside (and the 2 are often in conflict if someone needs to pick up from school..). I can't believe that Josie is now approaching her last year in primary school–everyone says this but the time you have with your children when they are very young seems to sail by. I feel fortunate that having a flexible job has meant I’ve spent as much time with them as possible whilst attempting (not often succeeding) in trying to keep on top of things at work."

Caroline Dessent

Caroline Dessent is a physical chemist who has worked in the department since 1997. She joined as a post-doctoral research fellow, held a Royal Society University Research Fellowship from 1999-2008 and is now a Senior Lecturer in the department. She currently holds a prestigious European Research Council Starting Grant (2008-2013).

Caroline says:

"I have had three children (James 12, Grace 7, and Kitty 3) over the time I’ve worked at York. As my children are quite spaced out in age, I’ve had the chance to experience firsthand how attitudes to maternity leave and flexible working have changed over the last decade or so. I had James in 2000, and came back to work full-time after four months of maternity leave. When I had my Grace in 2005, I returned to work full time after six months, but was able to work very flexibly with the department’s support. After Kitty was born in 2009, I was on leave for ten months and then returned to work three days a week initially. The demands of having three children and a busy husband are substantial (!) and I felt that it wasn’t possible for me to balance the demands of caring for my enlarged family with working full-time. It was very reassuring to know that the department would be fully supportive of my decision to work part-time.

"Like most issues around work-life balance, what was good for my family was not ideal for my laboratory, and I increased my part-time hours to 3.5 days and then to 4 days. Four days at work is certainly a much more comfortable compromise for my working life. However, it was probably essential for me to have the flexibility to work less days for a period of time when Kitty was very young, and it has been good to make these decisions without having to worry about how my employer views them."

Professor Robin Perutz

Professor Robin Perutz: 1983 started as lecturer, 2000-2004 Head of Department.

He writes:

“Athena SWAN has changed the way I try to support women in science. As Head of Department, my plans were to support staff to do their best, to foster a collegiate atmosphere, to ensuring staff were promoted, and to increase transparency. When Caroline Fox and colleagues surveyed the working practices in chemistry departments they soon signalled that what we were doing was unusual. I remember my acute embarrassment at being singled out at a meeting held at The Royal Society with several well-known women scientists. At that stage, I had no intention of plotting male/female ratios and analysing our work in the detail required by Athena SWAN. My successor, Paul Walton, ensured that we put in for Athena SWAN Awards though I helped in the applications. Now I think about the women in science aspects far more frequently than before, whether in appointments or recommendations for conference lecturers or working practices. The ideas of the AS Charter are so embedded with my colleagues that many a discussion is assessed against AS criteria.

"My research group was predominantly male when I started, whereas now I look back on a series of women who have gone on to successful scientific careers. I have also been lucky to collaborate with two outstanding French women scientists over many years. The importance of scientific opportunities extends to my family: my son and daughter-in-law, daughter and son-in-law are all in STEM professions.

"A few years ago I became Departmental Disability Officer. Although I had no experience of disabilities, I had heard about the issues because my wife coordinated support for children with physical disabilities for the City of York. This has become a task where I address very different sorts of diversity. My wife continues to be my first port of call to work out how to approach disability issues.”

External Activities

External Activities

Professor Paul Walton

Presentations and Advice to

• Athena SWAN award ceremony,
• Various universities including: Glasgow (x2), Heriot Watt, Cambridge, Imperial, Liverpool, Leicester (x2), De Montfort, Edinburgh Napier, Durham, Reading, QMUL, Cardiff, Southampton, Lancaster (x2), Newcastle, Portsmouth, Keele, Queen's Belfast (Queen's Gender Initiative), York (other departments)
• The Royal Society
• Siauliai University (Lithuania) on Athena SWAN and on the social science studies which have been carried into gender inequality.
• Equality and Diversity conference at York.
• Going for Gold seminar for the Equality Challenge Unit.
• EPSRC
• Trinity College Dublin
• CNRS (Paris): Two invited seminars given as INTEGER ambassador to inform CNRS executive on equality practice and its implementation in an academic setting.
• The Royal Society of Chemistry

Membership of Committees or Groups

• Served on Athena SWAN judging panel.
• An Athena SWAN champion.
• Chair of the RSC's working group on diversity.

Involvement in External Projects

• Ambassador for European INTEGER project presenting at seminars in Paris and Dublin.

Dr Sue Couling

Presentations and Advice to

• Leeds University and University of Edinburgh
• Vitae meeting Newcastle University

Membership of Committees or Groups

• Invited on Athena SWAN judging panel.
• University of York Athena SWAN working group member (helped prepare 2009 University re-submission)

Involvement in External Projects

• Expert on GeCo Project – A European project on Improving Gender Equality Competencies of Persons Responsible for Personnel Development in Private Enterprises and Higher education
• Hosted UKRC-WISE/GeCo National Networking meeting “Gaining senior management commitment to gender equality in HEI’s”; June 2012
• Ambassador for European INTEGER project invited to present at an ESOF seminar in Dublin; July 2012.

Dr Caroline Dessent

Presentations and Advice to

• National Institute of Health Researchers, Senior Investigators’ Meeting 2012
• Athena SWAN representative at White Rose Women's Network Meeting (Leadership and STEM) in Leeds

Membership of Committees or Groups

• Friend of the Daphne Jackson Trust

Dr Anne Duhme-Klair

• Paper in ChemMedChem special issue on Women in Medicinal Chemistry: European Women in Chemistry. Edited by J. Apotheker and L. Simon Sarkadi. 2011, 6, 612.

Professor Robin Perutz

Presentations and Advice to

• Universities: Reading, Cardiff, Birmingham
• National Institute of Health Researchers, Senior Investigators’ Meeting 2012
• Athena SWAN event in London June 2011

Membership of Committees or Groups

• Panel for Royal Society's Rosalind Franklin Award from 1 Jan 2012
• Member of Athena SWAN Steering Group: 2006-11

Dr Annie Hodgson

• Organised Smithson Tennant & Schools Lectures 2011

Links

Athena SWAN links

• Athena SWAN Charter for Women in Science
• Athena SWAN resources

University of York links

• University of York
• Department of Biology, University of York
• Department of Psychology, University of York
• Department of Physics, University of York
• Department of Computer Science, University of York

External resources

• Equality Challenge Unit
• Project Juno
• Juno Champion video
• Gender Competence in Business and Research: GenCo
• WISE
• York Racial Equality Network (YREN)
• RCUK Diversity statement
• The RSC and diversity
• Rosalind Franklin Awards
• http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/valian.htm
• Hunter College Gender: Schemas and Science Careers tutorials
• Michigan State University: Advancing Diversity through the Alignment of Policies and Practices
  • Resources
• Guardian Discussion on gender inequality in Higher Education
• Guardian Discussion: Gender equality in higher education must be made a global priority
• Nature: Special issue on Women in Science