This achievement was led by Director of Queen’s Gender Initiative, Professor Karen McCloskey, who is also Deputy Director of the Patrick G Johnston Centre for Cancer Research (PGJCCR).

Professor McCloskey’s dedication was last month recognised by University Chancellor Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton who said, “Congratulations on Queen's achieving Athena Swan gold status. Such a well-deserved recognition. Please extend my gratitude to Professor McCloskey for her leadership.”

We caught up with Professor McCloskey earlier this week.

 

How did you react when you heard the Athena Swan Gold Award application had been successful?

I was teaching at the time and a colleague sent a message that arrived on my smart watch.  I couldn’t react at all in the moment!  Needless to say, lots of moments of joy, pride in our achievement and celebration soon followed.

The Gold Award confirms Queen’s position as a leader in gender equality in the higher education sector and beyond.  While I led the Athena Swan Gold programme, which was around 5 years of focussed work, the achievement was the result of 25 years of hard work led by visionary women.  This highly prestigious award recognises this long-term commitment and the work of so many colleagues over many years that delivered sustained progress and recent improvements.

Can you outline a few key achievements that are recognised in the Gold Award?

Our data analysis showed improving gender balance across roles and grades.  There are more than three times (34%) the percentage of women professors today than 25 years ago. Queen’s ambition is to reach 40% by 2030.

Changes to working practices and patterns were commended by the Athena Swan assessment panel. For example, the University recently enhanced its portfolio of work / life policies to reflect the realities of people experiencing menopause or undergoing fertility treatment.

The PGJCCR is about 18 years old.  Within our area of STEM research, women are typically under-represented.  What improvements in gender equality has the PGJCCR achieved?

In 2010, there were 6 female academics or principal investigators in the PGJCCR – only 19%.  Today, this is 37% so there is more work to do, especially as only 21% of the Professors in the Centre are female.  We have a thriving community of talented, female early-career researchers so the near future promises to have better representation of senior women in the Centre.  We need to proactively lift each other up, share profile-raising opportunities and ensure no one is left behind.  The Centre is a vibrant workplace with students and staff from NI and around the world who work as administrators, technicians, researchers, academics – 58% of our staff are women. 

As a woman in STEM research, what drives you?

Curiosity and passion for laboratory-based research.  I always tell people that I picked up the research bug during my undergraduate research project.  I am insanely happy in the lab carrying out experiments, when my fantastic team allow me.  I particularly love ion channel research and assessing cell signalling in real time.  There is so much to be done to understand why cancer cells behave the way they do.  Our team brings cell physiology lenses alongside molecular biology techniques to interrogate cancer cell mechanisms with the aim of combatting cancer.

I am also driven by mentoring, supervising, educating and training students and early-career researchers.  Their energy, motivation and diligence is inspirational – I am reminded daily that the future of cancer research is in the best hands. 

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The Athena Swan Charter is a ‘framework to support and transform gender equality within higher education and research.’  Queen’s was one of the first universities to receive an Athena Swan Award in 2007.   The University has now pledged an ambitious plan to continue its sustained and longitudinal approach to gender equality. This work will include investing in a new Queen’s Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, which will improve access to higher education for disadvantaged schoolgirls, showcase gender equality research across Queen’s and launch international leadership programmes.

For more information about Queen’s work with Athena Swan, please visit: https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/QueensGenderInitiative/AthenaSwan/