Guidance on selecting Athena Swan Co-Chairs / Self-Assessment Team (SAT)
In addition to the chair or co-chairs, the team should include people from a variety of backgrounds and with different experiences, with consideration of intersectionality.
Chairing a UCD Athena Swan Self-Assessment Team
UCD requires Chairs to be:
- A senior academic
- A minimum of 24 months working in UCD
- A permanent staff member and passed their probation
If a co-chair model is adopted, the co-chair can be at an earlier career stage. However, it is recommended that early career staff such as Assistant Professors are members of the SAT rather than appointed as co-chairs.
SAT
A proportion of men and women that reflects the gender profile of the School should be represented on the SAT. Where the numbers of women (or men) in a department are very small, it may be that one gender is overrepresented on the SAT due to small numbers, for example: if there are only four women in a department of 25 and two of them sit on an SAT of six, the SAT would be 33% women while the department is only 16% women. It is vital that the composition of the SAT does not lead to a disproportionate burden on underrepresented groups.
A group of academics, professional and support staff, researchers, and students at different grades and levels that is representative of the submitting School. This should include full time and part time staff, and staff on different contract types. The application requires extensive quantitative and qualitative data, which requires in-depth analysis and good presentation, so that it may be readily interpreted by others. You may want to include someone on your SAT who can take the lead on producing relevant data sets.
Individuals with knowledge of, skills and experience in advancing gender equality. This may be a mix of both lived experience and that gained through research and scholarship.
For more information, see Setting up SAT Guide