Report: ‘Taking stock of Athena Swan: What value does it add and who decides?’

Today we are publishing a report on the Athena Swan Charter scheme, which we prepared on behalf of the Women’s Equality and Inequality Programme at Oxford University. Our analysis, undertaken in 2023, has concluded that there is insufficient evidence that it has delivered its key objectives, whilst the financial cost of the scheme to the university sector remains unquantified.

The scheme was established in 2005 to advance the representation of women in STEM disciplines in UK universities. In 2015, the scheme was expanded to cover non-STEM disciplines, as well as men, trans identified staff, and professional and support staff.

Sex inequalities in the higher education sector persist. For over 30 years, women have made up the majority of undergraduates and yet only 30% of professors are female and the sex pay gap in the sector is 13.7%.

The Athena Swan scheme has now been running for nearly two decades. Despite that, surprisingly little emphasis seems to have been placed on gathering good quality evidence on its effectiveness as a mechanism for addressing sex inequalities in promotion or pay. What evidence there is suggests at best a limited effect.

Even those in charge of the scheme recognise that it creates an administrative burden on institutions, which is widely understood to fall disproportionately on women. Yet there appears to have been no attempt to quantify the cost – administrative and financial – to a higher education sector under increasing pressure.

As the scheme approaches its twentieth anniversary, and in these financially straitened times, we suggest the university sector should look harder at how well its investment in the scheme is delivering on improved outcomes for its female staff.

You can read the full report here and a summary of its key findings here.