KBS staff accept the Athena Swan Silver Award
Monday, 13 November 2023

In April 2023 the University of Limerick became the first higher education institution in Ireland to win an Athena Swan Silver Award for its commitment to promoting gender equality. Last Wednesday November the 8th the Athena Swan Ireland Awards took place.

Athena Swan Ireland Bronze and Silver awards were presented to more than 30 institutions or departments at the event at University College Cork last week. The Charter aims to support higher education institutions, academic departments, and professional units in impactful and sustainable gender equality work.

UL won the silver institutional award, and the Kemmy Business School was one of a number of UL faculty award winners. The KBS is the 1st business school in Ireland to receive a Silver Athena Swan Award marking ongoing efforts in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.

Dr. Caroline Murphy and Michelle Carroll attended the event with KBS Dean Prof. Finbarr Murphy with Maureen Keogh and Michael O'Brien from UL EDI.

The event included the presentation of a number of case studies about the awards including: Professor Lorraine Leeson, Associate Vice Provost for Equality, Diversity & Inclusion, Trinity College Dublin; Dr Caroline Murphy, Senior Lecturer, Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick and Liz Hughes, Head of EDI at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences. (More detail about these and other case studies will be published in due course.)

Dr Caroline Murphy's presentation shared the journey to institutional Athena Swan Silver Award. Priorities included addressing gender imbalance, advancing representation of women at senior levels and sharing knowledge across the sector.

Congratulating the to the awardees, Katherine Harrison-Graves, Executive Director, Membership Innovation and Development, said, “The awards reflect the difference that you are making…not just to those that work and learning institutions now, but for the generations that follow, so thank you for that for what you're doing for your institutions, our staff, the students and wider society.”

A huge credit goes to the Kemmy Business School EDI committee of; Briga.Hynes, Caroline.Murphy, Cian.OShea, Darragh.Flannery, Deirdre.A.Mccarthy, Donald.Truxillo, Elaine.Berkery, Erin.King, Ita.Page, John.Walsh, Marie.Connolly, Martin.Cunneen, Mary.Finucane, Michael.OBrien, Michelle.Carroll, Orla.McCullagh, Paolo.Yaranon and Sonia.Pereira.

See the complete list of awards recipients here.