EEECS Achieves Gold Athena Swan Award!

What is Athena Swan?

The Athena Swan Charter, established in 2005, promotes and recognises commitment to advancing gender equality in higher education and research. Institutions and departments can apply for Bronze, Silver, or Gold awards through Advance HE to demonstrate their progress and impact.

Queen’s University Belfast was proud to become the first university on the island of Ireland, and only the second overall, to achieve a Gold institutional award in 2024. Building on that success, EEECS has now reached its own historic milestone.

Our Journey to Gold

EEECS has been part of the Athena Swan journey since its inception:

• 2011: First Silver application
• 2014: Silver award
• 2019: Silver renewal
• 2025: Gold award achieved!

For over 15 years, we’ve worked to make EEECS an inclusive and supportive environment. Since 2007, we’ve seen a notable increase in female academic and research staff, alongside steady female student representation.

Embedding Equality in Our Culture

Athena Swan isn’t just an award, it’s part of who we are. SWAN is a standing agenda item at SLT meetings and is woven into our school charter and values. Through this commitment, our staff and students have benefitted from:

• Teaching fellowship opportunities
• Leadership courses for women and minority genders
• Flexible working arrangements
• Line management training
• Active bystander workshops
  …and much more.

Why This Matters

This Gold award is a testament to the dedication of our entire school community over many years. To the best of our knowledge, EEECS is the first Computer Science or Electrical & Electronic Engineering school on the island of Ireland to achieve Gold.

Above: The Athena Swan EEECS SAT Team 2025

Let’s celebrate this achievement and keep pushing forward to ensure gender equality remains at the heart of everything we do.

Thank you all for making this possible!