Focus on UCC's new, 2024-2029 Athena Swan Gender Equality Action Plan

1 Jul 2024

Dr. Sarah Fink (pictured), Head of Athena Swan Ireland, visited UCC last week to offer a workshop on action planning, as work continues on preparing the University's new, five-year gender equality action plan. 

UCC has held a Bronze Athena Swan award since 2016, and will apply for Silver accreditation in November 2024.  Led by the Deputy President & Registrar, Prof. Stephen Byrne, nearly 60 people across the University are contributing to an equality self-assessment exercise, underway since 2023, to assess progress under UCC's current gender equality action plan and to identify areas for improvement in the next five-year action plan.  Prof. Nuala Finnegan, Prof. Ciara Heavin, Dr. Avril Hutch, Prof. Paul McSweeney and Dr. Darius Whelan have led the University's Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team (SAT) and an outline draft of the application is now in place.  

Work on action planning will proceed over the summer, informed by feedback from the 2024 EDI Staff Survey and staff focus groups (2022-2024).  Key issues and headline actions will be presented to the University at a Town Hall meeting planned for September (invite to follow).  

During her UCC workshop last week, Dr. Fink (Athena Swan Ireland) gave really helpful advice to UCC SAT-members on key aspects of the Silver application, including - 

• Reflecting on barriers and facilitators to success from the previous action plan
• Demonstrating impact from previous actions
• Determining new priority action areas
• Building capacity for intersectional approaches

To learn more, please contact ediunit@ucc.ie