2021 sees a change of leadership in equality and diversity in the Institute of Health and Wellbeing. As Breda Cullen takes over from Cindy Gray, Cindy reflects on her time as IHW Athena Swan Champion.

Photo of Cindy Gray

Following Anna Cooper in 2018 was daunting to say the least. Anna had been IHW Athena Swan Champion since 2012 and had successfully steered the Institute to being one of the first in the UK to win an Athena Swan Gold Award. However, it was a challenge that I relished, as I had been passionate about gender equality since 2011 when, as member of the original University Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team, I was actively involved in the University’s first submission for their Bronze Award. 

There have been many highlights over the last two years. These have included promoting a positive working culture for Professional Services Staff and identifying and addressing the issues faced by our ECRs, including during the current COVID-19 pandemic. I have also supported the setting up of an older staff working group. This has including securing funding to develop an older workers' toolkit and to address issues surrounding menopause. More recently, we have set up an LGBTQ+ group, which is currently working to promote equality of opportunity across the gender spectrum. Finally, this year, we have widened our equality and diversity remit beyond gender to include ethnicity and disability, in response to suggestions in the 2018/19 IHW Staff Survey.

COVID-19 has been a busy time for us. In addition to supporting ECRs, we conducted an extensive consultation to establish the issues staff were facing as a result of the pandemic. As a result, we established a series of IHW Town Hall meetings to directly address people’s concerns. We also developed guidance on how to ‘survive Zoom’, and implemented a light-touch annual review to encourage one-to-one discussion of the issues people were facing individually and any support required.

Pre-COVID highlights include representing IHW at an Athena Swan Gold Award Holders event in St Andrews, promoting equality and diversity at Hacettepe University in Ankara, Turkey (both in 2019) and celebrating International Women’s Day 2020 with an inspiring event featuring stories from survivors of domestic abuse and of women’s journeys towards equality in Saudi Arabia.

Finally, I am delighted to be handing over the role of Champion to Breda, who has been a great support to me as deputy over the last 12 months. I look forward to continuing to work closely with her in my new role as outgoing Champion over the next 12 months, and to continuing to support equality and diversity activities in IHW as we work towards the Athena Swan Gold renewal in 2022.

Professor Cindy Gray
Athena SWAN Champion
Institute of Health and Wellbeing

First published: 1 May 2018

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