Trinity is pushing ahead at school level with applications for Athena SWAN – a “critical” third-level gender equality scheme, with significant implications for College’s research funding – despite the coronavirus pandemic, a top official has said.
College’s application for a silver medal in the equality gender equality award – necessary if Trinity is to hold onto much of its research funding – is “considered critical and of strategic importance to Trinity”, Clodagh Brook, Trinity’s associate vice-provost for diversity, equality and inclusion, wrote in an email statement to The University Times.
She said Athena SWAN, as well as the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion at third-level, “remain central to planning during and after COVID-19”.
Brook added that an exemption for chair professors from a recruitment freeze implemented last month “can be seen as a sign of Trinity’s ongoing commitment to gender equality even in difficult times”.
Trinity’s five-year strategic plan, the details of which were first revealed by The University Times, aims for 40 per cent female chair professors by 2025. Currently, College has approximately 26 per cent female chair professors.
“In this period, we are continuing to prepare Athena SWAN School applications, despite the challenges of COVID-19”, Brook wrote.
Brook’s comments come as Trinity re-evaluates its targets and goals amid significant fears over the impact of the coronavirus on College’s finances.
In February, Brook told The University Times that Trinity was planning to push ahead with plans to submit an application for an Athena SWAN silver medal by 2022, despite an admission at College Board level in December that attempts up to then had yielded “disappointing” results.
Trinity’s strategic plan, the actual publication of which did not take place until March, doesn’t aim for an application until 2025.
But Brook said that “what we need to do is put in for silver by 2022 – that’s the important thing, and get it later on, that’s as far as the external eye would be concerned, so we need to put in for silver in 2022”.
An internal risk assessment of the strategic plan, published before Christmas and seen by The University Times, flagged a risk that “Trinity will not achieve 40% female representation of Chair Professors by 2025 due to (the) Irish Economy overheating”.
Trinity also highlighted the risk of an “impact on finances due to underachievement of Athena SWAN targets which require Silver status by 2023 to retain SFI, HRB and IRC research funding” – as well as the “risk of reputational damage due to poor publicity”.
Last month, The University Times reported that Trinity had frozen all staff recruitment due to the “significant financial consequences” of the coronavirus.
It’s not fully clear how much the freeze will impact College’s gender equality efforts in the medium term.
Under the terms of Athena SWAN – adopted by universities in 2015 in order to promote better gender equality practices – Trinity is required to have achieved a silver medal by 2023 in order to hold onto funding streams from the Irish Research Council, Health Research Board and Science Foundation Ireland.
The bodies have a combined annual budget of €230 million.
