School of Health & Wellbeing

A fresh intake of members has brought new and important perspective to the work of this group in the past 12 months, as chair Hamish McLeod explains

The PGR/DClinPsy working group is tasked with identifying and responding to issues of gender-based discrimination, equality, diversity, and inclusion for doctoral students of the School of Health and Wellbeing.

Our group has benefited greatly this year from increased input from PhD students who have joined as new members. This expanded perspective has been very helpful as we have worked to understand the ways that the COVID19 pandemic has affected doctoral students.

For example, mandatory social distancing restrictions have created problems of social isolation and disconnection from the research scholar community for many doctoral students and this has been slow to return to normal given the move to increased hybrid working. These effects may be a particular problem for students who have moved to Glasgow from elsewhere (e.g. international scholars) and those with carer responsibilities.

Our group has also been working with the mentoring subgroup to better meet the mentoring needs of doctorial students. Although there has been an increase in mentoring opportunities and offers over recent years there is still work to be done to tailor these to the diverse needs of the doctoral student population.

For the coming year the group will be co-chaired by Jelena Milicev who is replacing Dr Heather McClelland who has just passed her PhD viva – congratulations Heather and many thanks for your contribution to the group!

Hamish McLeod
Chairs of SHW Athena Swan PGR/DClinPsy working group

If you would like to join this Athena Swan group, please contact the group chairs – they'd be delighted to hear from you.

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First published: 21 September 2022