Image
The Earlham Institute has robust leadership and governance arrangements for inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility.
The Earlham Institute is committed to ensuring and promoting gender equality, and seeks to identify and mitigate any imbalances. We align with the Horizon Europe Gender Equality Plan (GEP) requirements as follows below.
I am extremely proud of the initiatives in place to support women scientists and EI’s ethos which embraces the principles of Athena SWAN. As a member of the Norwich Research Park, we also share best practices in gender equality with our neighbouring research partners.
Prof Neil Hall, Director
Mandatory Requirements
Public Document
Established in 2005, Athena SWAN recognises and encourages the careers of women employed in higher education and research. The Earlham Institute’s first submission to the prestigious Athena SWAN Charter, at the time owned and managed by the Equality Challenge Unit, received the Bronze Award.
This demonstrates our commitment to gender equality and provided us with our current action plan, which can be found here. We will submit to the reformed charter managed by Advanced HE our Athena Swan Bronze application in June 2022, following which we will publish our full Athena Swan Action Plan.
That the GEP has dedicated resources
We have been working on our Athena Swan Action Plan since 2016 and have completed 34 of the 53 requirements. We are working with a dedicated equality and diversity expert on the delivery of the plan with the outstanding actions ongoing and on track for completion.
Our Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee, has responsibility for advising and assisting with the development and implementation of Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Accessibility strategy at EI. It is responsible for reviewing EI’s progress and performance on promoting IDEA across the Institute. We have a separate Self-Assessment Team overseeing current Athena SWAN activity.
Data Collection and Monitoring
As an employer with fewer than 250 employees, we are not required by law to report and publish our gender pay gap information. Nevertheless, our Strategic Human Resources Committee conducts annual reviews of salary data to identify salary anomalies, exceptional pay awards and special bonuses which includes gender comparison of performance reviews and pay awards, and takes any actions required.
Our staff data is anonymised and updated daily onto a dedicated platform from which we can draw data disaggregated not only by gender but by all other protected characteristics. This helps us analyse intersectional data connected with gender (e.g., ethnicity and gender, disability and gender) to enable us to work to a more holistic and sophisticated level.
Training
We support our staff by offering mandatory training that tackles issues of inequality and reduces the risk of gender, race or other discrimination when making decisions. Mandatory training includes:
- Equality and Diversity Training: concepts of diversity, equality & equal opportunities, why diversity is important, stereotyping and prejudice, understanding bias and challenging unacceptable behaviour.
- Understanding Bullying and Harassment: what may be perceived as bullying or harassment, awareness of equality and diversity, effects of bullying or harassment, what to do if you are being bullied and the difference between fair management and bullying.
- Recruitment and Selection: understanding the parameters created by legislation and our own natural biases, and how to minimise associated risk.
We also plan to roll out training for all staff on how to recognise and appropriately challenge workplace microaggression.
We provide funding and mentoring for staff members to attend targeted development opportunities and our IDEA Committee helps to support and promote inclusion, diversity, equality and accessibility at the Earlham Institute.
Prof Neil Hall, Director
June 2022