Henley awarded Athena SWAN Bronze accreditation

Henley Business School has today been awarded the Athena SWAN Bronze accreditation in recognition of its work in eliminating gender bias in the workplace and promoting an inclusive culture for its staff.

Athena SWAN is a charter managed by Advance HE which recognises and celebrates good practices in higher education and research institutions towards the advancement of gender equality.

The judging panel unanimously agreed to award Henley with a Bronze accreditation following a rigorous assessment process which included an evaluation of gender equality in the institution, including quantitative (staff data) and qualitative (policies, practices, systems and arrangements) evidence and identifying both challenges and opportunities, plus the submission of a four-year plan that builds on this assessment to carry proposed actions forward.

In its assessment the Athena SWAN judging panel praised Henley’s submission, noting a number of actions the Business School has taken to ensure a more inclusive place to work and study, in particular:

• the establishment of an institution-wide staff engagement initiative which enabled fundamental changes to working practices from staff induction to wellbeing and communication
• staff training on how to identify and encourage potential promotion candidates
• recent success with academic promotion in the last few years with more women than men being put forward, helping to build gender balance at professorial level
• the introduction of mentoring for professional service staff
• initiatives regarding student recruitment
• Henley Women in Leadership events which champion women’s issues internally and externally
• Henley’s partnership with the FT and 30% Club to offer Women in Leadership MBA scholarships, now in its eighth year.

Professor John Board, Dean of Henley Business School, said:

“Diversity and inclusion is very important to all of us at Henley and we are completely committed to ensuring equity and equality for staff and students alike and to creating a welcoming and flexible culture for all. We are delighted to be conferred with the Athena SWAN Bronze accreditation which has given us the opportunity to review areas of current good practice, progress we have made, and identify areas for development and improvement. We acknowledge that there is still work to do and we will continue to develop the ideas and initiatives outlined in our submission which will form a roadmap of our future activity and commitment.”

Further evidence of Henley’s commitment to championing diversity and women in leadership can be seen in the recent Economist Executive MBA ranking 2020 in which Henley was ranked no.1 in the world for the gender balance of our faculty and no.2 in the UK for gender balance of students in the cohort. In the FT Global Masters in Finance ranking 2020 Henley topped the UK table for percentage of female faculty (47% of full-time faculty are women), placing at no.2 in the world. Henley was also placed no.7 in the UK for percentage of female students (54%). In the FT Executive Education ranking 2020, Henley’s open programmes ranked no.1 in the UK for percentage of women course participants (52%).

Following the Athena SWAN award, the next stage is for Henley to implement the four-year action plan which formed part of the assessment and will provide a framework for future activities.

Find out more about Athena SWAN here.