Committee for Equal Opportunities

3 June 2008

ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORTONUCL’S GENDER EQUALITY SCHEME

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As part of the gender equality duties, UCL is required to publish an annual report containing a summary of the actions that it has taken towards the advancement of its gender equality objectives. This report sets out progress against the key areas identified for necessary action to forward gender equality at UCL. UCL is making good progress and several major initiatives are underway.Additional details of progress against the welfare support student initiative will be included in the near future.

1. Background:

1.1. The Gender Equality Duty came into force in April 2007. The aim is to eliminate unlawful discrimination and harassment and promote equality of opportunity between women and men and also transgendered people. It placed a specific duty on public authorities, including universities, to develop and publish a Scheme by 30 April 2007 in consultation with staff and students. The Scheme should set out gender equality objectives for the next three years, address any gender pay gaps, and assess the impact of current and proposed policies and practices on gender equality and mainstream gender equality into core functions.

1.2. UCL’s Gender Equality Scheme, approved by the CEO on 7 March 2007 and published shortly thereafter, was developed by a Gender Equality Scheme Working Group (GESWG) of staff and students, who will continue to assess the impact of the Scheme and to monitor its implementation in future. The Group comprises women and men from across disciplines, Departments, Divisions and grades and has representation from Trades Unions.

1.3. Additionally data from UCL’s current annual staff and student equal opportunities monitoring process, the results and action plan from UCL’s staff survey in 2004-05, analysis of UCL responses to the national Athena ASSET survey (2004) for male and female academic staff and researchers in SET (Science, Engineering & Technology and related disciplines), who make up over 60% of UCL academic staff and its work on achieving an Athena SWAN bronze award, were also used to identify objectives and priorities.

1.4. UCL aims to promote gender equality in all its operations and to prevent unlawful gender discrimination. It aims through its Gender Equality Scheme and other strategic policies to promote diversity, fairness, justice and equality of access and opportunity, identify any barriers to progress, expose inequalities and their underlying causes and take remedial and preventative action.

1.5. UCL’s Gender Equality Action Plan is available at

2. Priority areas:

2.1. The following key areas had been identified for action on gender equality, and were incorporated into the GES:

  • Promotion of the GES to staff and students and assessment of the impact of UCL policies on gender equality, raising awareness and mainstreaming gender equality into UCL strategies
  • Data monitoring: improving communication of staff data on workforce profiles, progress towards UCL’s workforce equality targets in relation to sex and in appraisal completion rates. Improving use and communication of student data
  • Career progression, promotions and grading reviews: At regular staff review and feedback raise staff awareness of procedures related to gender equality
  • Development of a workplace culture that recognises and respects family and carer responsibilities
  • Reviewing the gender balance in staff and student groups and levels where one gender is under-represented and establishing targets where appropriate
  • Equal pay audit
  • Provision of welfare support for students in relation to counselling, pregnancy, childcare and harassment.

3. Progress against objectives:

3.1. UCL’s GenderEquality Scheme was promoted widely to all staff and students through the UCL Home page, all staff and student e mails, the UCL Union, by Departmental Equal Opportunity Liaison Officers within each department and the Provost’s newsletter.

3.2. Additionally UCL held an all day, very well attended gender equality event on 18 March 2008. Open to all UCL staff and students and invited guests, with high profile speakers, to promote UCL’s Action Plan on Gender Equality it was alsoa day of discussion, ideas and action on:

Why there is still a gender gap

What progress has been made to close the gender gap at UCL and elsewhere

Women in science, engineering and technology

Women in clinical academia and academic medicine

How to surmount career barriers - hot tips from public figures

Feedback from the day was overwhelming enthusiastic and a web page with presentations and action points from the day has been set up at

3.3. UCL has in conjunction with Press for Change produced guidance notes on inclusive and supportive practice on transgender issues.

3.4. UCL’s Policy team has been working closely with UCL Procurement Services and has developed an equality procurement questionnaire which is being used in each tendering process, the better to ensure all suppliers and contractors comply with UCL’s Gender (and other equality) Schemes.

3.5. UCL’s Equality Action Planning is now in its seventh and final year, so by the end of 2008 all UCL departments will have taken part, some 105 departments in all. Each department develops three or four equality initiatives or goals for change. One of these should be to support the achievement of UCL‘s corporate workforce equality targets, one of which is to increase the representation of women at grade 9 and above by 2% per annum, with the ultimate aim of a 50:50 split of women and men at this level at UCL by 2011. This would include identifying any barriers to career progression for women, especially black and minority ethnic women and to consider what support they would welcome to compete for posts at a senior level on an equal footing with their male counterparts. All Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) departments involved in Equality Action Planning undertake an initiative that will work towards the advancement and promotion of women in SET. This year 12 departments are taking part.Consideration is currently being given to the next corporate initiative to follow on from Equality Action Planning and it is likely that this will build on UCL’s current SWAN charter work to advance women in Science, Engineering and Technology.

3.6.UCL monitors and annually reviews the equality profile of its workforce and examines progress towards reaching its gender equality target. In October 2007 women made up 29% of grades 9 and 10, no change from the previous year.

3.7.UCL’s Committee for Equal Opportunities and Human Resources Policy Committee monitor annually UCL’s workforce by sex, ethnicity, disability, grade and contract status, its recruitment activity, harassment and bullying by sex, ethnicity and disability, the implementation of UCL’s performance management policies and training take up.In 2008 data was included on UCL’s home page to make this information more accessible. UCL also compares itself against the DLA Piper HR Higher Education Sector bench marker with other similar higher education institutions. The comparisons are favourable.

3.8.The Committee for Equal Opportunities annually monitors undergraduate and postgraduate student data by ethnicity, sex and disability status at Faculty/Department level which covers profiles, applications, offers and acceptances, progress, completion rates and awards. Faculty Teaching Committees also review their student data and report back annually to CEO what action has been taken and filter the data down to a departmental level. UCL’s Quality Management and Enhancement Committee (QMEC), has developed monitoring processes at departmental, faculty and corporate level to promote greater consistency in quality across UCL and to ensure procedures are in place to identify and act upon any consistent themes emerging. Departmental reports wereto be presented to FTC’s in March/April 2008 which will “measure student performance and compare the data with previous years” and FTCs are to report progress to Academic Committee in October 2008.

3.9. UCL’sScience, Engineering and Technology (SET) data, is broken down by sex, age, grade, average length of service and also maternity leave. It is published on UCL’s Women in SET web page and progress is compared over time

3.10. UCL is a founder member of the Athena SWAN charter and a bronze award holder.It is in the process of promoting chartering for silver awards amongst its SET departments and a seminar to this effect is to be held on 3rdJuly, with guest speakers of colleagues from silver and gold departments in other HEIs.What characterises silver as different from bronze, is comparison of UCL data with other HEI's to see if we are 'in step', achievement and a clear demonstration of progress. In addition to the 3 Bronze areas of:

• Knowing the base line and the SET academic staff profile
• Providing positive support for women at key career transition points
• Changing the culture and the gender balance in decision making

UCL will have to show achievement and progress on:
• Work-life balance practices, their introduction and uptake
• Champions, responsibilities and accountabilities

3.11. As part of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) 2008, UCL’s RAE 2008 Staff Selection Review Group is currently reviewing the age, disability, ethnicity and sex profile of staff eligible for submission, those submitted and those not submitted and will address any imbalance in the total pool of staff and also in any particular UoA (Unit of Assessment) submission.

3.12.Workshops have been held on promotion, including one for women only, to debunk some of the myths and to clarify the process. Thesewere well received and the issues raised were fed back to Heads of Departments. Theseincluded:

  • Appraisal as a forum for discussing career development and building CV’s for promotion. As at March 2008, there was an appraisal completion rate of 71% across UCL. The target is 95% completion
  • Fair work load allocation especially regarding administrative loads
  • The need for part time senior role models
  • Managing career breaks and dependentfamilies with the need to develop an international research reputation and cross institutional collaborations
  • Balancing domestic responsibilities with early/late meetings and teaching commitments
  • The changing balance of research, teaching, knowledge transfer and enabling activity over a career

3.13. UCL has implemented sabbatical leave as a right for research active academics returning from maternity leave to give them an opportunity to re-charge their research after their absence. Consideration is also being given to how UCL can be more welcoming and inclusive for those whose family responsibilities mean that juggling home and work demands is necessarily complex.

3.14. UCL is currently piloting a mentoring project for women in the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences. Mentors and mentees will be chosen and matched over the summer, with training sessions for mentors in October. The first mentoring sessions will hopefully take place in November. Some of the issues identified for the sessions are:

  • Better knowledge of promotion criteria and process
  • Identifying and developing skills
  • Working on high profile projects
  • Necessary experience in operational areas
  • Careers advice and direction
  • Managing academic career and family life
  • Dealing with obstacles including unconscious gender bias, assertiveness skills.

3.15. One of UCL’s Corporate Equality Objectives is to improve the representation on UCL Committees of underrepresented groups, including women and minority ethnic staff (and students). In 2003 sixteen key committees were identified for monitoring in consultation with the Governance Committee as those with a particularly significant role in developing or approving policy making and where action to realise the above objective is therefore seen as particularly important. Progress is annually reviewed by the Governance and Nominations Committees and overseen also by the CEO.

The CEO will review progress at its 3 June 2008 meeting.

3.16.UCL’s new pay framework was implemented in May 2006. The Equal Pay Audit undertaken in June 2007 showed no significant basic pay differentials in the data in terms of sex, ethnic origin, disability or part time status. A major review and revision of professorial pay arrangements is currently underway, after which an Equal Pay Audit will be undertaken.

3.17.Provision of welfare support for students in relation to counselling, pregnancy, childcare and harassment is currently underway. More details of progress will be forthcoming.

4. Recommendations

4.1. That the CEO receive this report for information and progress be publicised widely within UCL and on UCL’s Equalities web site.

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