Women in STEM
Promoting the equality of women in STEM is an important part of our work. We understand that good working practice benefits all staff and students, whereas bad working practice can adversely affect the careers of women more than men.
Gender equality awards and initiatives
The Athena Swan Charter is a framework which is used across the globe to support and transform gender equality within higher education (HE) and research.
Established in 2005 to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine (STEMM) employment, the Charter is now being used across the globe to address gender equality more broadly, and not just barriers to progression that affect women.
We recognise the importance of the equal participation of women at all levels in a subject that has traditionally been, and remains, male-dominated. The School is committed to the Athena Swan charter which recognises the advancement of gender equality: representation, progression and success for all.
We're proud to hold a School Silver Athena Swan Charter award as a result of this work. Our ambition is to advance to Athena Swan Gold, which is the highest level of recognition.'
Our Physics team hold an Institute of Physics Project Juno Champion award, the highest level of recognition. We follow the action plan created to adhere to the six Project Juno Scheme principles.
The Physics team were proud to host the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics (CUWiP).
The CUWiP is a three-day conference which brings together physics undergraduates who identify as women. The conference is intended to empower delegates and give them the confidence to both express themselves clearly and to make positive decisions to follow a career using their physics knowledge and skills.
Read more about the conference in the CUWiP Evaluation Report (PDF 
, 2,456kb)
Policies and initiatives
York has a number of policies and initiatives in place to support equality. As a School, we are working on many initiatives to ensure equality is instilled in all our work such as:
- ensuring there is gender representation on committees, and that members are represented across a range of ages, grades, length of time in the School and are representative of all major staff groups including academic, research, teaching, admin and technical staff
- the Chair of the School equality, diversity and inclusion committee is a member of the School leadership team
- continually reviewing the recruitment and new starter processes to ensure that we are offering equal opportunities to all
- communicating our work through the staff digest and social media, ensuring that it is user-friendly and accessible to all by including text-links and alt-text on images
- making sure many of our equality, diversity and inclusion committee roles are listed as ex-officio to ensure that gender equality can be maintained
- all School committees having an 'equality moment' - a specific agenda item - to ensure that matters are considered in all decision making processes
- collaborating with the community to open up STEM subjects to all as part of our outreach projects
Resources
- IoP Women in Physics Group
- The WISE Campaign (Women in Science and Engineering)
- Women's Engineering Society
- Engineer a Better World campaign
- STEMettes Girls do Science too