Sheila Gupta, Vice-Principal (People, Culture and Inclusion), writes to update staff on progress the University is making on gender equality.

At the core of our Strategy 2030 is our ambition to be the most inclusive University of our kind, anywhere. Last month I wrote to you all to share news of the improvements we have made in the use of fixed-term and casual contracts.

This month I want to update you on the progress we are making on gender equality.

Last week, we submitted our institutional Athena Swan Silver Self-Assessment, which is an analysis of gender equality across the whole University. The Athena Swan Charter exists to support higher education institutions in advancing gender equality and Queen Mary was proud to receive the Silver award in 2016. The latest self-assessment supports the renewal of this accreditation.

The work we have undertaken showed we have taken significant steps forward in key areas.

We are seeing improvements in both application and success rates for academic appointments and promotions among women. There is a strong increase in the proportion of women at senior lecturer and reader level, and an even stronger increase in the proportion of BAME women at lecturer level.

We have also seen evidence of this improvement in this year’s academic promotions, which our Faculty Vice-Principals wrote to you about in October.

The assessment reinforced the improvements we have made on fixed-term contracts with a specific finding that shows the proportion of women teaching-only staff has dropped 9 percentage points between 2017/18 and 2020/21 and is now in line with male teaching-only staff.

Finally, I am delighted to report that we have slashed our gender bonus pay gap from 50 per cent in 2017 to 0 per cent in 2020, which is a direct result of the progressive changes we have made to the staff bonus schemes.

These successes are a result of staff’s hard work across our University. I am extremely grateful to everyone involved and very proud of the progress we have made.