Written answers
Tuesday, 17 May 2022
Department of Education and Skills
Gender Equality
Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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564. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the details of the higher education bodies that have been awarded funding under the gender equality enhancement fund in 2020-2021 to advance gender equality initiatives in Irish higher education; the amount received by each of these bodies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24239/22]
Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Gender Equality Enhancement Fund is an annual funding call with the following objectives:
- To encourage innovative approaches to addressing gender inequality across HEIs;
- To facilitate gender equality initiatives that respond to the recommendations of the HEA Expert Group and/or Gender Equality Taskforce’s recommended actions; and
- To encourage cross-sectoral collaboration as a means to achieve national transformation.
To date, the HEA has awarded funding of €536,114 to advance gender equality initiatives in Irish higher education. Awards have been made across three areas:
- Research on or advancing gender equality initiatives in Ireland;
- Training programmes specifically addressing gender equality; and
- Athena SWAN capacity-building activities.
Projects funded under Gender Equality Enhancement Fund in 2020 and 2021 are set out in the table below.
| HEI partners* | Project title | Year of award | Funding |
|---|---|---|---|
| DCU, DkIT and NUI Galway | Mid-Career Development Programme for Women | 2020 | €50,200 |
| IADT, GMIT and MU | Irish Network for Gender Equality in Computing (INGENIC): The Collective Voice for Gender Equality in Computing | 2020 | €23,800 |
| Carlow College, IT Carlow, LIT, MIC and WIT | The development and implementation of a Gender Identity, Expression and Diversity Training Programme for staff in Irish HEIs | 2020 | €28,300 |
| DCU, NUI Galway, UCC, UCD and UL | Supporting Athena SWAN in the Mathematical Sciences: Benchmarking and Networking | 2020 | €42,743 |
| RCSI, TU Dublin and UCC | LIBRA - Future Proofing Gender Equality in Higher Education Institutions - Experiential Learning in Simulation for Students Leaders | 2020 | €47,857 |
| IT Carlow, MU, TU Dublin and UCD | TechMate: A best practice toolkit for driving sustainable acceleration towards gender equality in technology disciplines in HEIs. | 2020 | €33,000 |
| IT Sligo, TU Dublin and UCD | You can be what you can see: pSTEM Role Models | 2020 | €35,714 |
| MU, NUI Galway and UL | Preparing for Academic Advancement (PAA) | 2020 | €24,500 |
| TU Dublin, TCD, UCC, UCD and UL. | Increasing the voice of women economists in the media and public discourse through training and promotion. | 2021 | €31,808 |
| DCU, TU Dublin and UL. | Getting ahead versus getting along: Investigating how gender stereotypes are contributing to gender inequality in HEIs. | 2021 | €49,537 |
| AIT, Carlow College, IT Carlow, LIT, MIC, and WIT. | Embedding Gender Identity, Expression & Diversity Training and Best Practice into Irish HEIs. | 2021 | €32,120 |
| AIT, IT Carlow, LIT, MTU and WIT. | Embedding Equality Diversity and Inclusion in the Curriculum of the new Technological University Sector: EDIT Project. | 2021 | €37,926 |
| DCU, IT Sligo, MIC, MU, and TCD. | Integrating the gender dimension into teaching, learning and educational outreach in initial teacher education. | 2021 | €19,000 |
| IADT, IT Sligo and TU Dublin. | Working Women and the Menopause: a study of the impact of the menopause on careers of a sample of women working in the HEI sector in Ireland. | 2021 | €29,609 |
| DCU, MU, NUIG, TCD, UCC, and UCD and UL. | Preparing for Academic Advancement (PAA) | 2021 | €50,000 |
*lead applicants are indicated in bold.
Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent)
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565. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the funding that has been provided to date by his Department or any bodies under the aegis of his Department to support the national gender equality dashboard for higher education institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24240/22]
Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I would like to thank the Deputy for her question.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has been collecting gender disaggregated staff data from Irish higher education institutions (HEIs) that are in receipt of annual core-grant funding from the HEA since 2015. This data is published annually by the HEA in the Higher Education Institutional Staff Profiles by Gender and is publicly available at: hea.ie/policy/gender/statistics/. These profiles provide information on key indicators which contribute to the assessment of gender equality in Irish HEIs. This publication offers a valuable baseline from which progress can be measured, and includes all grades of staff, in all publicly funded HEIs.
As well as listing the gender of each president/or equivalent, the gender-balance on governing authority/body, academic council, and executive management teams is provided per HEI, and the sector summaries indicate the number of institutions that have a minimum 40% of each gender on these key decision-making bodies.
Staffing information collected includes:
- Staff by category of post (academic core-funded staff, Professional, Management and Support core-funded staff, research/specialist academic staff, research/specialist Professional, Management and Support Staff)
- Academic staff by discipline
- Academic staff by contract type
- Professional, Management and Support Staff by contract type
- Professional, Management and Support Staff by pay scale
The profiles also list Athena Swan institutional and departmental awards attained by HEIs. Athena Swan awards are important indicators of progress towards gender equality.
On 8 March 2021, I launched the national gender equality dashboard for higher education institutions. This dashboard visualises data collected by the HEA. The dashboard was developed by Maynooth University and provides, for the first time, an interactive and comparative visualisation of key staff data and gender profiles from Irish higher education institutions. It is funded locally by Maynooth University and is a key action in the university’s Gender Action Plan 2018-2022 available here (www.maynoothuniversity.ie/sites/default/files/assets/document/MU%20Gender%20Equality%20Action%20Plan%202018-2022-WEB.pdf).
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