The Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts (LICA) has received an Athena SWAN Bronze Award in recognition of its commitment to advancing gender equality.

The award positions Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts among a select group of fewer than ten arts schools to achieve Athena SWAN (Scientific Women’s Academic Network) recognition.

Judith Mottram, Professor of Visual Arts and Director of LICA, said: “We are really happy to be a recipient for the Athena SWAN Bronze Award. It is quite surprising perhaps, but in professional creative workplaces there is still a long way to go to address some of the issues of equality and diversity that are so important to Athena SWAN. As an educational institution, we are really pleased to be one of the first creative departments to engage actively with these matters.”

The Athena SWAN Charter was formed in 2005 to challenge the under-representation and inequalities of women within science at higher education and research levels. More recently, in 2015, it was broadened to include the Arts, Humanities, Social Sciences, Business and Law, as well as looking at issues around gender equality more widely.

For more information about Lancaster University’s work on gender equality and the Athena SWAN awards see lancaster.ac.uk/edi/diversity-groups/gender-equality/