International Women's Day

LJMU is joining organisations across the globe to celebrate International Women's Day (IWD) 2021.

The day recognises the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women, while calling for action in accelerating gender parity.

The themes for IWD (2021) are:

• A challenged world is an alert world. Individually, we're all responsible for our own thoughts and actions, all day, every day.
• We can all choose to challenge and call out gender bias and inequality. We can all choose to seek out and celebrate women's achievements. Collectively, we can all help create an inclusive world.
• From challenge comes change, so let's all #ChooseToChallenge

LJMU is marking IWD with a series of events and activities throughout the week.

Professor Phil Vickerman, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Strategic Initiatives and Chair of the university Athena Swan Working Group said: “LJMU is working hard to ensure we are a ‘university where everyone is equal, but never the same’. Our equality, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) priorities and action plan 2020 – 2024 set out clear and stretching targets that all relate to women.”

LJMU is committed to:

• Increasing the ethnic diversity of staff and support their career progression.
• Increasing the proportion of women conferred with professorship, readership and in senior management roles and thereby reducing the gender pay gap.
• Ensuring appropriate support is available to staff members with mental health conditions.
• Having a culture where staff and students feel safe to report acts of harassment, discrimination, hate or violence and are confident to seek support.

LJMU has secured institutional Athena Swan Bronze Status, with aspirations to move quickly to silver, then gold.

Several university departments are applying for their Athena Swan bronze/silver awards to support and transform gender equality. We will be focusing on the 10 principles of the Athena Swan Charter Mark, committing to a progressive review of our policies, practice, action plans and culture.

Professor Vickerman adds: “LJMU’s Athena Swan aspirations, institutional EDI objectives and Respect Always commitment are important signals of our intention to change the way we work. Indeed the IWD (2021) #ChooseToChallenge campaign aligns well with the culture and values we want to advance.”