Good Practice in Chemistry Departments

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Good Practice in Chemistry Departments

• Sarah Dickinson
• Royal Society of Chemistry
• and
• Caroline Fox
• Athena Forum

2
Outline

• Numbers women in science
• Career intensions of PhD students
• Work with Athena
• Good Practice

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• Both men and women benefit from good practice,
  however, women in particular are adversely
  affected by bad practice

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Overall Students Numbers HE is increasingly a
female environment
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Chemistry Student Numbers getting there.
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Chemistry Student Numbers but its not all good
news
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Percentage of female staff by grade in all
subjects
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Percentage of female staff by grade
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Some comparisons.
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Postgraduate surveys 1999 and 2006

• Women postgraduates were more likely to seek
  careers advice from careers services, and earlier
  than men.
• Equal proportions of men and women said that they
  had received careers advice at the end of three
  years but men were more likely to have spoken to
  supervisor as their sole advisor
• 79 of women and 86 of men intended to use
  their science in their careers

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Do you plan to be a research chemist?
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Possible reasons for giving up

• Positive decision to do something else
• Negative experience of research in academic
  chemistry
• Pessimism about future job prospects in chemistry
  (salaries, job security, lack of promotion)

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The results do have policy implications

• The findings of the research have serious
  implications especially as the proportion of
  women graduating in chemistry approaches 50
  percent
• Any increases in the number of chemistry
  graduates may be counteracted by the leaky
  pipeline
• The need for action to encourage women to stay in
  chemistry is becoming even more important than it
  was!

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Just a bit of fun
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The Athena Moment
the moment when the proportions of female and
male staff are equal

• Chemistry - 2038
• Biosciences 2015
• Physics - 2102
• Mathematics - 2237
• However, parity in chemistry full professorships
  is not likely for eighty years

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Athena Project 1999-2007

• ATHENA AIMS
• To advance and promote the careers of women in
  science, engineering and technology in higher
  education (HE) and research and to achieve a
  significant increase in the number of women
  recruited to top posts
• ATHENA FOCUS
• Working in partnership to encourage, support,
  develop, identify and disseminate good practice,
  which is
• simple
• cheap
• effective
• And changes how we do things round here

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Athena successes

• Development grants projects in 12 universities
• LAWNs Local Academic Womens Networks in 15
  universities
• 7 Royal Society Athena awards for good practice
• 27 Reports on good practice
• Athena Survey of science, engineering and
  technology (ASSET) of13,000 scientists
  engineers
• Athena SWAN Charter and recognition awards
• Some 80 universities have worked with Athena

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Factors affecting career choices of graduate
chemists

• Published in 1999, this study found that
• Both men and women had concerns about long hours,
  low pay and career structure
• Women alone were concerned about
• Poor working conditions
• Emphasis on results rather than process
• Isolation and segregation
• Working environment in academic chemistry deters
  large numbers of women from remaining
• Structure of departments and the nature of the
  subject creates barriers to their promotion

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Recruitment and Retention of Women in Academic
Chemistry 2001

• A few chemistry departments were observed to have
  a significantly greater proportion of women staff
  than most
• Was this purely by chance or was there more going
  on?
• Study sought to find out through interviews with
  a number of female staff in a number of different
  departments

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Conclusions

• The introduction of good management practice has
  a identifiable impact on the willingness of women
  to apply to and remain within departments
• The personalityand personal circumstancesof the
  head of department are significant in determining
  good management practice
• Institutions have a role in ensuring that
  selection procedures for department heads prevent
  departments selecting leaders in their own image
• The best departments do not target measures
  specifically at women

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Strategic Messages I

• The problem of increasing the number of women in
  chemistry and in senior positions is not
  intractable.
• But good practice is patchy and needs to be
  spread to become the prevailing ethos
• in UK chemistry departments
• in science departments in general.
• Good practice is embedded in department cultures,
  histories and personalities it will take time to
  become universal.

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Strategic Messages II

• The RSC, universities and departments need to
• plan to sustain long-term culture change
• take short-term initiatives to improve the
  immediate position.
• Both sets of measures should take account of
  needs
• over the working week
• over the career trajectory.
• Action to promote change
• should largely be gender-neutral
• create a better professional and employment
  environment for men and women.

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(No Transcript)
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Good Practice Report 2004

• To provide a tool to allow departments to assess
  themselves for good practice
• And to provide examples of good practice

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Methodology

• Checklist sent to all chemistry departments and
  returned by 25 (about half).
• Followed up responses with telephone interviews
• Selected five departments with considerable good
  practice for visits
• Spoke to individuals to learn about their
  experiences

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Good Practice Report 2nd Edition 2008

• Updated checklist sent to all chemistry
  departments and so far returned by 36
• Followed up responses with telephone interviews
• Carried out departmental visits

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University of Utopia
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University of Utopia

• Welcoming
• Supportive
• Encouraging
• Accessibility
• Transparency
• Accountability

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University of Utopia

• Open doors.
• Open minds
• Good practice.
• Good science
• Sustainable careers.
• Sustainable departments

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Athena Partnership Toolkit

• Good Practice checklist now based on five Key
  Performance Indicators, available as a checklist
  for university academic departments
• IOP, RSC are piloting a generic departmental good
  practice visit and benchmarking report, which can
  be undertaken by other science professional
  societies

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KPIs of Good Practice Juno Principles

• A robust organisational framework for action to
  deliver equality of opportunity and reward
• Appointment and promotion processes that
  encourage men and women to apply for academic
  posts at all levels
• Career progression arrangements that are actively
  managed and supported
• Departmental organisation, culture structures and
  systems that are inclusive
• Flexibility across the working day, working year
  and working life to maximise individuals
  contributions to SET at all life and career
  stages

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Thank youSarah Dickinson (dickinsons_at_rsc.org)Ca
roline Fox (caroline.fox_at_royalsociety.org)www.rs
c.org/Diversity.asp