The University’s Faculty of Engineering has received a gold award in the latest round of Athena SWAN submissions.

In addition to this, the School of Psychology has also retained their silver Athena SWAN award which was gained in 2008 and renewed in 2012 and 2017.

The Faculty of Engineering is the first of its kind to be awarded a gold award in the history of the Athena SWAN scheme.

Sarah Sharples, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion and People and Professor of Human Factors, said: “In both my role as PVC for EDI and People and a proud member of the Faculty of Engineering, I am absolutely thrilled with this tremendous achievement.

“The gold award is extremely rare, but I believe it reflects the consistent quality and dedication of colleagues within the faculty who have been working towards this over many years.

“This gold award is as much a statement of intent as it is recognition of work done so far, and we have detailed plans in place highlighting areas in which we will be striving to achieve further excellence to maintain this coveted accreditation.”

Athena SWAN focuses on work to improve gender equality in universities through analysing and reflecting on data to understand where improvements need to be made to representation and support.

Tamsin Majerus, Athena SWAN coordinator at Nottingham, said: “It is so wonderful to see the recognition of the excellent EDI leadership stemming from colleagues and activities in the Faculty of Engineering.

“This Gold Athena SWAN award is the result of many years of hard, collaborative work, to remove barriers, improve and champion opportunities for all staff to achieve their best and recognise and reward achievements in a fair and transparent manner.

“The initiatives around recruitment starting with ‘Diversity by Design’ are a great and shining example of beacon activity and have real potential to positively transform the diversity of our workforce.”

Find out more about the programme here.