Athena Swan progress report 2026
On 13 March 2024, the University of St Andrews was which acknowledged our continued efforts to advance gender equality across the University. The award identified our key gender equality priority areas to be addressed over the next 5 years through our Athena Swan Silver action plan 2024-2028.
The Athena Swan Implementation Group is responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Athena Swan action plan and assessing the impact of actions.
For the two-year anniversary of the award, we have produced this report on the progress made delivering our 2024-2028 action plan.
“On behalf of the Athena Swan Implementation Group, I would like to thank all members of the University of St Andrews community for their contributions to advancing gender equality.
Engagement with the Athena Swan Charter continues to provide a vital framework for formalising, coordinating and measuring our efforts to create an inclusive environment in which staff and students at the University can thrive and excel.
Demonstrating our commitment to transparency, this Athena Swan progress report reflects our collective achievements as well as the areas where further progress is needed.
Equality, diversity and inclusion are most effectively embedded when we work collaboratively to design, deliver and monitor actions. Aligning Athena Swan activity with related institutional strategies and action plans has therefore been a key focus over the past year. Through the development of a combined delivery plan, we aim to strengthen coordination across initiatives, support effective implementation and minimise duplication of effort.
The Athena Swan Implementation Group will continue to scrutinise our gender equality activities and their impact, helping to ensure that commitments on paper translate into meaningful and sustained change.
We hope the University community will join us in recognising and celebrating progress so far, and in continuing to embed gender equality across all aspects of the University’s work and interactions”
- Athena Swan Implementation Group Chair
Progress on action implementation
Of the 39 actions within the five-year action plan, over a third have been completed or are on track to be completed this year. Eight actions, although started, have experienced some delays and 16 have not started. Our monitoring work allows us to identify the reasons for any delays, where these delays are material, and where interventions may be required to support progress.
Key developments
We have:
Built structures to support implementation of the Action Plan
- Established the Athena Swan Implementation Group (action 34) to take forward implementation and monitoring of the action plan
- Appointed a Chair to lead the work (action 35)
- Developed a joint delivery plan (action 39)
- Held regular meetings with the Race Equality Charter Monitoring and Action Implementation Team (action 21) to support collaborative working on shared practice areas.
- Developed an accessible database of School level Athena Swan actions to better facilitate sharing of practice and support identification of shared issues for institutional attention (action 38)
Showcased our staff to represent the diversity of our community
- Improved recruitment materials (action 1) – including ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø stories and updating and expanding the inclusive recruitment guidance
- Developed a diverse set of case studies showing career pathways to Professor (action 5) to give greater visibility to different trajectories to promotion
“Sharing our career trajectories – including the twists and turns that can happen along the way - helps demonstrate that progression is not always linear and demystifies the various routes into more senior roles. What stands out is that the case studies recognise there is no single best way of being an academic, and highlight the many different ways we can contribute to academic life.” Anna Brown, Business School
Expanded our training and development provision
- Delivered active bystander training (action 25) to empower staff and students to challenge in appropriate behaviours, which has been attended by 626 staff since January 2024
- Extended eligibility for the Aurora programme to Grade 5 professional services staff (action 9) and supported six Grade 5 staff to date
“As someone who has always held analytical roles, I found that I was lacking in the “people-centred” skills that would enable me to progress in my career beyond a certain level. I applied for the Aurora programme as I needed something to pull me out of my comfort zone and to help build my confidence around interpersonal working relationships and networking. Working with and learning from a network of inspiring, supportive women gave me the confidence to actively influence my own career progression.” Susan Williamson, Planning
Quantitative trends in gender equality
We monitor metrics to measure the impact of our actions against the gender equality priority areas in our Silver award and the University’s ambition to drive further progress and improvement.
The proportion of women professors is 31.6% (compared to 28.3% in 2022). Although the proportion of professors who are Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic women remains very low (less than 2%).
Seven of our Heads of School are women, compared with four in 2022.
The gender pay gap continues to close. The 2025 mean gender pay gap was 15.7% (down from 17.6% in 2022), with the mean gender pay gap from grade 9 of 11.2% (down from 12.2% in 2022).
Many of our academic Schools are progressing to higher level Athena Swan awards. We now have seven Silver and two Gold award holding Schools.
Priority areas of work in the next year
- Review promotions criteria and promotions support to facilitate participation by those in underrepresented and marginalised groups (action 3 and 14)
- Revision of Review and Development Scheme for Professional Services staff to better facilitate a focused discussion of future career plans and aspirations (action 11)
- Improve Equality Impact Assessment processes, training and guidance (action 31) to support inclusive policy development and more effective consideration of intersectional inequalities
Find out more about the Athena Swan Charter and read our Athena Swan Silver application.
Published 13 March 2026