{"id":2867,"date":"2025-11-02T12:03:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T12:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2867"},"modified":"2025-11-02T13:24:48","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T13:24:48","slug":"the-gaming-of-athena-swan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/?p=2867","title":{"rendered":"The Gaming of Athena SWAN"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Athena SWAN<\/a> is run by Advance HE<\/a>. Universities pay fees to Advance HE for assessment, application and renewal of the Athena SWAN accreditation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advance HE is a company limited by guarantee (as well as a registered charity). The company is owned by two bodies of the higher education sector \u2013 Universities UK<\/a> and GuildHE<\/a>. Their members are the Vice Chancellors or the Principals of all the UK universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advance HE’s Board is listed in its Annual Report<\/a>. The current Chair is Professor Mark E. Smith<\/a>, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Southampton. The Board is composed almost entirely of Vice Chancellors or other members of senior management of UK Universities. Like all companies, Advance HE exists (at least in part) to make money. Its annual accounts for year ending 31 July 2024 show income of \u00a319,194,000. Advance HE generates its income primarily through services to higher education institutions (membership fees, programmes and services, sale of educational resources, fees for events, conferences and workshops).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Athena Swan awards are used across the globe “to support and transform gender equality”<\/em>.  This is a laudable aim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The criticism often levelled against Athena SWAN is that the award incentivizes cosmetic changes rather than real transformation. The applications for awards are time-consuming, requiring large amounts of data collection and narrative reporting. More seriously, the application is entirely self-certified, so there is little to stop departments ‘gaming the system<\/em>‘ or ‘making up the answers<\/em>‘. Universities know exactly what Athena SWAN want to hear, and so they provide it in their applications.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Disturbingly, the 21 Group has received a number of reports of the failure of Athena SWAN to take action when provided with evidence of problems in departments on which their awards have been bestowed. We give two examples here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our first account comes from a postdoctoral scholar who tried to alert Athena SWAN to the serious problems unfolding in her department while she was a student:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dear [REDACTED]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am a recent graduate of the [REDACTED] Faculty at the University of [REDACTED]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understand that the Bronze award lapses in the faculty this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would like to share my testimony as a female student with a disability of what it was like to be part of this faculty as part of the upcoming application to renew their award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regards, Dr [REDACTED]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

She never received any acknowledgment or response to this or further emails. In light of its stated objectives, it is troubling that Athena SWAN appears to show little interest in the personal experiences of female academics. Nevertheless, the Faculty\u2019s Bronze Award was renewed without issue, even as the difficulties for women persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second example is even more telling. Physics has long grappled with gender inequality, and perhaps for that reason, it hosts two parallel schemes. Alongside Athena SWAN, the Institute of Physics <\/a>runs the Juno scheme<\/a> \u2014 recently updated and sharing similar aims. This allows physics departments to apply for both, giving us a clear basis for comparison.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, a Professor at a Russell Group university wrote to both Athena SWAN and the Institute of Physics to raise concerns about the department\u2019s award applications. Factual information in both the Athena SWAN and Juno applications appeared to contain statements that were not wholly accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Institute of Physics behaved in a truly exemplary manner. They responded immediately. They put in a lot of work, including meeting with the University. They deferred any further consideration of the Juno application until matters had been resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did Athena SWAN do? They did respond this time (perhaps because the correspondent was a Professor and not a recent grad student). In an unhelpful email, they said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“As you are aware from our Guide to Processes, Advance HE is not a regulator and does not have powers of investigation; we are only able to consider information that is independently verifiable, for example, from an authority such as a court or tribunal or the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have reviewed the information you’ve submitted and unfortunately concluded that it would require further investigation. In line with our processes, the information provided therefore does not impact on the eligibility of the Institute for an Athena SWAN award.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you again for raising your concerns with us; I appreciate that this might not be the outcome you were hoping for and I hope that you are able to find a resolution to this issue soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

All the Best [REDACTED]”<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Athena SWAN seems to view its job as complete once an award is handed out, showing no concern if reality on the ground diverges from the glowing picture in the application.<\/strong> Extraordinarily, an award is only reconsidered if “a court, tribunal, or the Equality and Human Rights Commission<\/em>” provides contrary independently verifiable information, not if an individual provides evidence of factual inaccuracies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ignoring people in distress hardly reflects a caring institution. And letting universities self-certify while holding complainants to an entirely different standard of proof speaks less of justice than of self-protection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bearing in mind Athena SWAN is run by Universities UK (an organisation formerly and more truthfully known as the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals of the Universities of the United Kingdom<\/em>), perhaps little was ever to be expected other than a mechanistic, tick-box exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athena SWAN does nothing to stop discrimination or misogynistic bullying. Its main purpose seems to be to lend a spurious glow of moral authority to University administrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 21 Group is interested in the experiences of others who contact Athena SWAN. Please use contact@21percent.org to tell us<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Athena SWAN is run by Advance HE. Universities pay fees to Advance HE for assessment, application and renewal of the Athena SWAN accreditation. Advance HE is a company limited by guarantee (as well as a registered charity). The company is owned by two bodies of the higher education sector \u2013 Universities […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2867"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2895,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2867\/revisions\/2895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/21percent.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}