Help with your application
This page is designed to guide departments through the transformed UK Athena Swan Charter process and provides helpful tips for writing your application.
PLEASE NOTE: From the November 2022 submission round, all new applications and renewals must be submitted under the transformed UK Athena Swan Charter. To find out more information about recent changes to the Charter, please visit the Advance HE website here.
Departments submitting an application for the first time are advised to apply for a Bronze award. This requires a thorough gender analysis of staff and student data to support the creation of an action plan to progress gender equality. As an applicant for a Bronze award, you should be honest about where you are as a department and explain what you will do to address any issues highlighted by your data.
Applicants for Silver awards must demonstrate progress on gender equality against their previous action plan and provide evidence of impact. They must also capture new actions for the future.
Going for Gold requires evidence of considerable impact arising from a department’s actions and evidence of its role as a “beacon” of good practice. This can be demonstrated through supporting and mentoring other departments, both internal and external to the University.
If you are unable to find the information you are looking for on these pages, please consult the Athena Swan FAQs.
It is worth looking at some of our successful Bronze and Silver awards before you commit to an Athena SWAN submission, to get an idea of what is required. You can contact the EDI team for copies of past submissions.
You will need to carefully consider the resources and capacity required to complete an application. This will include the formation of a Self-Assessment Team (SAT) made up of academics, students and professional services. Core members of the SAT will be responsible for carrying out the writing and submission of the application when required, and you should consider additional resource and effective workload allocation arrangements to cover this process. This will need to be evidenced in the application itself.
You will also need a budget to cover the administration fee charged by Advance HE (£500 VAT Exempt), other costs associated with data collection (e.g. hosting focus groups) and supporting specific Charter activities such as training, travel or sponsorship.
In terms of timescales, a good rule of thumb is to allow at least 18 months from the formation of your SAT to submission of your application. For example, if you want to apply in March 2024, you will need to establish a SAT by September 2022 at the latest.
Advance HE provides the Athena Swan application form, in addition to Charter information packs, available from the transformed Charter pages on their website.
Please ensure you are downloading the appropriate application form (Bronze, Silver or Gold):
- Information pack for Departments
- Information pack for Research Institutes
- Information pack for Professional, Technical and Operational (PTO) Directorates
The EDI team also offer presentations and workshops on data requirements, action planning and other guidance. Please contact the team to schedule a session or ask for further information and resources.
The University's Gender Equality Group oversees the strategy for both institutional and departmental Athena SWAN submissions and encourage new applications. To inform them of your intention to submit, please contact the EDI team.
The EDI team also offer presentations and workshops on data requirements, action planning and other guidance. Please contact the team to schedule a session or ask for further information and resources.
There are six submission deadlines per year. Advance HE accepts applications on the last working days in January, March, May, July, September and November. You must inform them of your intention to submit an application two months in advance of the application deadline, in order for judging panels to be arranged. These are strict deadlines and your application will not be accepted if Advance HE have not received enough notice of submission. For more information about submission deadlines, visit the Advance HE webpage here.
Advance HE requires a Self Assessment-Team (SAT) to be set-up as part of your Athena Swan submission. The SAT plays a pivotal role in putting an application together.
Responsibilities of the SAT:
- analyse the quantitative data provided for their department
- set-up qualitative data collection e.g. consultations and focus groups for staff and students
- co-ordinate delivery of their action plan and monitor progress
- provide updates to the Gender Equality Group via the EDI team
- write and submit the Athena Swan application
The SAT will need to meet regularly to ensure they can carry out these responsibilities and keep the application on track. A good guideline is at least once a month during term time in the lead-up to submission and at least quarterly post-submission.
In terms of membership, the SAT should contain representatives from:
- Each academic job family (Education and Research, Education and Scholarship, Research)
- Departmental undergraduate community
- Departmental post-graduate community
- Professional Services
In most cases, the departmental Athena Swan lead takes the role of SAT chair. Advance HE indicates that the membership of a SAT should also reflect:
- a proportionate gender balance reflective of the department
- part-time, flexible working and career breaks
- dual-career families
- recent recruits/promotions
- different career stages
- different levels of seniority and responsibility
Some departments have found it useful to run a sub-group of the SAT that takes responsibility for the actual writing of an application. It is recommended to assign specific sections of the application to members of this writing sub-group.
The Athena Swan data pack can be accessed via the MI Hub and contains both the core data departments will require for an application and also additional analysis which may highlight other issues and areas for action for the Self-Assessment Team (SAT).
For access to the data pack, or if you require any additions to the core data collated centrally, please contact the EDI team in the first instance.
Please note that Advance HE has specific guidance for clinical and non-clinical staff. They will only assess those staff members employed directly by the University, so data on clinical and allied health professionals working with the University but employed elsewhere is not required.
Specific questions within the application require benchmarking against national trends. Benchmarking guidance is provided by Advance HE here.
The combination of your data pack and national benchmark data will provide your SAT with a good overview of the either the current gender equality status of your department (Bronze awards) or any positive changes (Silver awards). Use the SAT to analyse the data, build a narrative for your application and start creating an action plan.
It is likely that you will want to source your own departmental data as well, including details of local events, engagement and/or focus group and consultation feedback.
The Self-Assessment Team (SAT) will be required to write the following:
Bronze awards:
- An overview of the department and its approach to gender equality
- An assessment of the department's gender equality context
- Future action plan
Silver awards:
As above, in addition to an evaluation of the department's progress and success.
Gold awards:
As all of the above, in addition to an evaluation of the department's sector-leading activity.
You can download the relevant information pack from the Advance HE website for more detailed information.
The EDI team can arrange an internal panel review ahead of your submission. The panel will usually consist of colleagues with experience in submitting a successful Athena Swan application at either Bronze or Silver level. Please ensure that you give the team enough time to facilitate these – we recommend panels are held at least 12 weeks in advance of a submission deadline, to allow enough time for amendments following feedback. Please notify the team as early as possible in order to ensure colleague availability.
It is also useful to have an external assessor to review your application prior to submission. The EDI team can facilitate this for you, but departments are also welcome to contact other institutions or individuals of their choice.
Applications need to be submitted to Advance HE by the last working day of the month in any of the six annual submission rounds. More information on the process for submitting an application is available here.
Submissions should be submitted via a single PDF upload (by 5pm on the deadline date) on the My Advance HE Equality Charters Portal.
Please note, you will require a My Advance HE account so ensure that you have created this in advance of the deadline.
Advance HE aims to release all results 5 months after the submissions deadline. All applicants, both successful and unsuccessful, will receive clear feedback from the judging panels soon after the results are announced. The new Athena Swan scoring rubric against which all applications are assessed by the panel can be found here.
Applicants will either receive an award, or be advised of either minor or major revisions if they score below 'Satisfactory' for any criterion under the transformed Charter. Minor revisions will enable unsuccessful applicants who have only narrowly missed the criteria to review the application within 8 weeks and return for approval by Chair's action.
If an application requires major revisions, applicants will have six months to revise their application and resubmit for assessment by the same panel.