Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank Senators Dolan and Keogan for raising this important issue on International Women's Day. While we have made significant progress in recent years, we have a lot more to do. Higher education legislation requires institutions to promote gender balance among students and staff and the Higher Education Authority, HEA, to promote the attainment of equality of opportunity.

The 2016 report of the expert group on gender equality and the 2018 gender equality task force report encompass a suite of initiatives to bring about sustainable organisational change and to empower a culture of gender equality at all levels in all our institutions among all staff, including academic and professional staff, management and support staff. These initiatives would lead to a more equal system in which a person’s gender was not a barrier to career progression. The HEA monitors institutional performance and is included as a key focus in the performance framework.

One of the recommendations in the 2018 gender equality task force’s action plan was that a Centre of Excellence for Gender Equality be established. This was established in the HEA in 2019 and now also covers diversity and inclusion. The centre ensures an acceleration towards gender equality and is a key enabler in ensuring sustainable change by providing centralised support for the institutions, facilitating the sharing of good practice and funding innovative organisational and cultural change initiatives nationally.

In 2019, the senior academic leadership initiative was launched by the Department to assist in accelerating gender balance at senior levels through the award of 45 gender-targeted senior academic leadership posts over three years.

In 2020, an annual gender equality enhancement fund was established by the HEA centre of excellence to encourage cross-sectoral collaboration as a means to achieve national transformation. The centre uses this fund to encourage innovative approaches to addressing gender inequality across the institutions.

The Athena SWAN charter is a framework used across the globe to support and transform gender equality in higher education and research. Engagement with the charter is a key pillar of our national strategy for gender equality in higher education. The charter was launched in Ireland in 2015 with a specific remit to encourage and recognise commitment to advancing the careers of women in higher education. As of the end of 2020, a total of 56 Athena SWAN bronze awards were held by Irish higher education institutions including 14 awards for institutions and 42 for departments.The Athena SWAN award achievement is a requirement for research funding eligibility from the three main research funding agencies, the Irish Research Council, IRC, the Health Research Board, HRB, and Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. The HEA sets and monitors timelines within which higher education institutes, HEIs, should apply for and attain Athena SWAN accreditation. In light of these requirements, HEIs stand to lose access to research funding from the IRC, HRB and SFI if they do not achieve Athena SWAN awards within the set timeframe.

The IRC is working with the HEA and other research funders on issues of gender equality and the implementation of the gender action plan 2018 to 2020. The council was among the first research funders globally to gender-blind applicants to its research funding programmes. For assessment panels, the IRC targets gender parity in the composition of such panels, at minimum of no less than 40% of each gender. The council monitors gender balance in applications and awards annually. For awards made in 2019 there was gender parity on applications, with female awardees comprising close to 55% of the total.