Achievements

Recruitment of Staff: 

Heads of research groups and appointment committees have been made
aware of the requirements of the university’s equal opportunities policies, and
attention is being addressed to the content and structure of advertisements.
As a result of the Athena SWAN assessment process, ECS has established a
policy (agreed at the ECS Board) of positive action, which aims to increase
the female ratio of academic staff, by identifying and actively approaching the
best quality female candidate(s) in the desired area for newly advertised
posts. If there is interest, then they are encouraged to visit, engage in contact
and where appropriate, apply for the position to subsequently be assessed by
the same criteria as all other candidates. Complementary generic activities
being considered include for example identifying female speakers for events
such as seminars which may also be used to create a perception of strong
female role models and potentially spark interest in ECS in advance of
opportunities being advertised. The working and effects of this will be
monitored. The Head of ECS will report on this to the SAT (Action 2.1). We
do not currently have a policy of always having a woman on appointments
panels as this would put too much load on our female staff. We will seek to
address this by co-opting women from other units of from HR.

Support for career transition points

ECS diversity committee established a precedent through the career-step
initiative in 2010. Female early career researchers who participated in this
peer development community valued the investment in their futures, and such
was the recognised success of the programme that it was instigated in a
campus wide-initiative titled “Future-step”. ECS now understand that the
particular benefits accrued from a local initiative to promote and support peer
development is such, that in 2012-13 we will be reinstating career step for
female researchers and early career academics with the specific objective of
empowering them to discuss and identify personal career objectives; which
the Athena Swan development team see as being complementary to the
wider objectives of our team (Action 4.2).
Other relevant local initiatives include work led by Professor Luc Moreau in
the Web and Internet Science (WAIS) research group, a successful career
oriented discussion forum has been established beginning in 2011. Efforts will
be made to disseminate this good practice across the wider ECS community
(Action 4.1).

Support for female students

The student-run organization ECSWomen, has been active for over 5 years
and is promoting women studying in ECS. It is concentrated on continuous
support of females throughout different levels of their education bringing
together undergraduates, MSc, PhD and researchers as well as academic 25
staff in ECS. It organizes events which focus on soft skills and employability
improvement such as self confidence classes, CV and interview workshops.
By hosting informal meetings with alumni and special guests over coffee and
cake, ECSWomen helps establish strong relationships between females in
different areas of experience and gives an opportunity to build a network
amongst the female students in ECS and sustain a friendlier environment.
The society understands the needs of support to the female students in ECS
due to gender imbalance and addresses the related issues. ECSWomen
takes an active part in conferences promoting females in STEM subjects (for
instance they have reimbursed the travel expenses for a couple of their
members for going to Birmingham for the HEA Young Women Engineering
Network Event). From this year, ECSWomen is cooperating closely with
Theano – an organization in UoS gathering all female students in STEM
subjects. Both organisations are complementary and offer a wide range of
highly attended events.
The Electronics and Computer Science Society (ECSS) is a student run
society for students within the school. The society provides social, academic
and sporting events separate from the degree program and encourages the
interaction of all those within the school regardless of degree program or
gender. As such, the various social events provide valuable opportunities to
meet with those on other courses as well as providing a means of meeting
other women in technical programs in a more informal setting. Female
involvement within the society has been relatively high – this academic year, 4
out of 10 members of the ECSS committee are women. The society also
supports a number of other societies within the school including ECSWomen.
Both ECSWomen and ECSS are strong and self-sustaining so do not require
specific support from the SAT. Both will continue to have representation on
the SAT to ensure representation and coordination.
ECS supports ECSWomen and ECSS by providing facilities and support from
our marketing and business development team to make links with and
sponsorship from industry