Athena Swan application highlight: Committee turnover policy
Committee turnover policy (excerpt from our submission)
Goal: unbiased representation for committee members and chairs
Action: Development of an advisory tenure for committee chairs (3-5 years dependent on committee) and policy for opening up positions to new applicants:
- Advertisement by email and/or weekly newsletter.
- Explicit consideration of full staff list (to avoid implicit bias) and encouragement (via email) of individuals to apply.
- Final decision based on consideration of workload model and gender makeup.
We have improved gender balance throughout several committees, with 4 female:5 male committee chairs (2016) compared to 1 female:8 male chairs (2014).
Management group composition (which consists of committee chairs and research centre directors) has changed from 5 female:9 male (2015) to 7 female:7 male (2017).