Gender equality 2023
Learning and students
One of the institutions from which the University of Huddersfield is descended is the Huddersfield Female Educational Institute, created in 1846 and one of the pioneers of its kind. Even today, the University is amongst the leaders is offering opportunities to women – of the women who started a degree in 2021/22, 1,352 (60% of those for whom data were available) were from families where their parents had no experience of higher education (full-time equivalent figures). In that year, in disciplines associated with medicine women outnumbered men, representing 82% of the graduates in those areas.
We systematically measure and track women's application rate to the University, their acceptance and entry rate, and their study completion and graduation rate at the University – this is a long-standing commitment to gender equality and now carried out as part of the Access and Participation process overseen by the Office for Students.
The University’s Access and Participation Plan, which includes data recording the University’s successes in supporting women's applications, acceptance/entry, and participation at the University, and our plans for ensuring that this continues, is publically available.
Public and Business Engagement
We support schemes such as the Yorkshire Sound Women Network which promote opportunities in traditionally male spheres (in this case sound and music technology), supporting efforts to address under-representation, and in general encourage applications by women in subjects where they are underrepresented.
Impact for students
The University has been a member of the Athena SWAN Charter for gender equality since 2015. The Charter was developed to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in research and academia. It recognises the advancement of gender equality through representation, progression and success for all. In 2020 the University renewed its Bronze Athena SWAN Award for Gender Equality. Within the University, the School of Applied Sciences holds a departmental Athena SWAN Silver Award, and the Huddersfield Business School and the School of Computing and Engineering each hold a departmental Athena SWAN Bronze Award.
The University has formal policies on non-discrimination against women, and transgender people. We also have maternity and paternity policies that support women’s participation.
We engage with the wide range of childcare providers in the vicinity of campus to enable students and staff to make choices for their children that suit the varied patterns of their other commitments.
Among senior academic staff, working at Grade 9 and above, female colleagues represent 39%, up from 38% in the previous year.
Research
The University has several research groups and centres which support the objective of gender equality. For example, the Just Futures Centre (the Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Research) aims to work together to understand the challenges and co-produce the solutions that will be needed to bring about more just futures for children, young people, families, communities and society at large, locally, nationally and internationally. Current projects include Domestic Abuse and Child Protection (2022-24) funded by the Nuffield Foundation, and Evaluating Models of Care, Best Practice and Care Pathways for Women Who are Dependent on Drugs (2022-24) supported by the NIHR.