Divisional Athena SWAN Self Assessment Team Meeting

Divisional Athena SWAN Self Assessment Team Meeting 21st February 2014, 11:00-12:00, Reza Razavi’s Office, 4th Floor, Lambeth Wing, ST Thomas’ Hospital

Attendees - Serene Counsell (SC), David Edwards (DE), Verity Birch (VB), David Cox (DC), Erica Andreozzi (EA), Prachi Patkee (PP), Rafa Torres (RT), Jo Lawton (JL) via telephone

Apologies: Reza Razavi

1. Minutes & Actions

 JL met with Unconscious bias trainer last week; training format is still being decided and the costing will need to be agreed by the Champions. The course will be evaluated and JL will feedback. SC asked for dates to be agreed as soon as possible, as notice will be needed to get as many senior staff as possible to attend. Action - JL to get unconscious bias training dates to SC today.

 EA has been in touch with mentees and is collecting feedback. Only half have replied so far. SC advised that this is okay this can be a longer-term item.

 EA will be organizing a post-doc brainstorming session for the week after next. EA to send out email today with invites..

 SC & KS are going to meet with Tricia Hunt from the Chemistry Department at Imperial, who now have a gold Athena SWAN award, later today to get some feedback on our application and share any good practice.

 SC praised the Department Managers and Departmental PAs for all their hard work collecting the divisional data.

 SC invited Professor Alex Hammers to join the SAT group but he is too busy at the moment.

 SC advised that appraisal forms are to be modified at college level so this will not need to be undertaken at Divisional level.

2. Student Benchmarking Data

 SC advised attendees that some progress has been made; SC has had an email form Juliet Chester saying she would provide data, but she now says that she cant via the Heidi system. SC has found some HESA reports that cost £65 for each year and will download them if no data is received by next Tuesday.

 SC suggested getting the application in and then providing feedback at College level regarding the provision of data and suggestions for improvement.

 SC advised that we are still awaiting student data for 2013

3. Membership of the SAT  SC asked attendees if they would be happy to invite Professor Reza Razavi, the Head of the Division, to join the SAT. Attendees agreed. Action – KJ to invite Reza Razavi to join the SAT and to get some wording from him for the application

4. Post-doc & PhD focus groups

 PP gave an update from the PhD student focus group that was held. The following suggestions were made: o Update website and handbook with relevant information regarding maternity/paternity leave o Update website with links for talks (Showcase for Women in Science) - these should be recorded as podcasts and uploaded on to the website. Talks should be based around careers not scientific content o Online database of grants applied for with names and success rates o Need for mentors and confidential reporting system o Create a PhD and post doc group - responsible for organising talks and lunches with speakers o Group will help coordinate outreach activities by organising one off careers days with local schools o EA and PP will try to put up a blog on the divisional page where we can post updates for talks and meeting on other sites. The blog will also be used as a means for organising groups when attending events elsewhere and for social purposes o Career progression for students – speakers to come in on Tuessday and create podcasts from that, can also do this on Divisional seminars, when CDT kicks in there will be a lot more o Support for students – lots of students would like mentors o Imperial has confidential reports that are sent around every few months where issue can be picked up if they are issue they are want to address outside of the Division. o How are we going to escalate things from the post-doc forum? Need to identify reporting mechanisms for issues. Student surveys’ happen annually, do we have information

5. Stand-ins at Divisional Board

 SC advised that the Divisional Board members agreed to have stand-ins should they not be able to attend. This will promote accountability and transparency of decision making and allow more women to attend these high- level decision making meetings.

6. Website update & review of documents

 KS & VB met during the week to look at the Divisional webpages for Athena SWAN. KS gave the following update: o At the moment our Divisional page looks like this. Clicking on the 'Women in Science' link takes you here, to the School's Women in Science page, which does not reflect the Division, our events or our female academics. o Rather than have a link on the Division’s page that goes to the School Women in Science page, KS & VB suggest having a link to the Division’s women in science page, which could be changed to really reflect the Division – this is particularly more important as the submission will be Divisional and not School-wide. o The format from the NMS Athena SWAN page is suggested, with the following contents:

Athena Overview/Initiative/SAT Committee Swan Woman in ISBE Staff Profiles Student Profile Funding and Key facts: Amount, eligibility, deadlines with link to Fellowships main site Mentoring in the overview of our scheme Division info docs Useful Links and Link to College site Policies Fact Sheet Societies Open Forum News and Events Divisional and College seminars Current and Alumni achievements

o KS sent out documents in red above to the SAT and requested any feedback would be welcome. o The updated Divisional Handbook and ‘Factsheet for Parents’ were sent to SAT members for review.

7. AOB

 Action - SC will circulate draft of application on Wednesday 26th February for attendees to review at the next meeting.

 Action - KS to book a room for the next meeting and circulate minutes and details.

 DE referred to a letter in Times from Cambridge University calling for a rethink on how success is valued and measured in academia so that women are not disadvantaged in academic appointments and promotions. JL has suggested that King’s do something around this. Action – KJ to circulate the link to SAT members.

 SC suggested that more female academics be added to the CDT pages.

8. Future Meetings

Next meeting – Friday 28 th February 2014, Reza Razavi’s Office, 4 th Floor, Lambeth Wing, St Thomas’ Hospital