Good Practice Steering Group

In 2010 the Mathematical Institute became a Supporter of the LMS/HoDoMS Good Practice Scheme. In early 2011 a Steering Group on Good Practice was set up to advise on, and take forward, initiatives relating to the five principles laid out in the scheme. This was launched with an expanded version of the London Mathematical Society’s annual Mary Cartwright Meeting (named after the LMS’s first woman president) which was held in Oxford in February 2011, adding to the Mary Cartwright lecture by a leading woman mathematician (Prof. Alison Etheridge from Oxford) a lunch for all women in the department and a careers forum for young researchers.

The Good Practice Steering Group meets each term and makes a report to the Departmental Committee. It aims to have at any one time representatives of the various groups working within the department and a gender mix. According to its terms of reference it advises the Departmental Committee on and takes forward initiatives in relation to the five principles of the LMS Good Practice Scheme:

• a robust organisational framework to deliver equality of opportunity and reward;
• appointment, promotion and selection processes and procedures that encourage men and women to apply for academic posts at all levels;
• departmental structures and systems that enable men and women to progress and continue in their careers;
• departmental organisation, structure, management arrangements and culture that are open, inclusive and transparent and encourage the participation of all staff;
• flexible approaches and provisions that encompass the working day, the working year and a working life and enable individuals, at all career and life stages, to maximise their contribution to mathematics, their department and institution;

and promotes good employment practices of all kinds, including but not limited to the ones set out above.

The Steering Group also takes account of the six principles of the Athena SWAN charter, whose aim is to advance the representation of women in science, engineering and technology (SET): 

• to address gender inequalities requires commitment and action from everyone, at all levels of the organisation;
• to tackle the unequal representation of women in science requires changing cultures and attitudes across the organisation;
• the absence of diversity at management and policy-making levels has broad implications which the organisation will examine;
• the high loss rate of women in science is an urgent concern which the organisation will address;
• the system of short-term contracts has particularly negative consequences for the retention and progression of women in science, which the organisation recognises;
• there are both personal and structural obstacles to women making the transition from PhD into a sustainable academic career in science, which require the active consideration of the organisation.

Current members

On 9 November 2012 the Good Practice webpages were launched at a lunchtime event for women graduate students and postdocs in the Mathematical Institute. A demonstration of the webpages by Dr Ornella Cominetti was followed by a sandwich lunch and then three short talks chaired by Professors Helen Byrne and Frances Kirwan: Dr Lillian Pierce, "The intersection of harmonic analysis and number theory"; Dr Kathryn Gillow, "Image Colourisation";  and Professor Ulrike Tillmann FRS, "Moduli spaces of manifolds".  

If you would like to get in touch or be involved in the committee do not hesitate to frances [dot] kirwan [-at-] balliol [dot] ox [dot] ac [dot] uk (contact us). We welcome any ideas on how to improve our good practice webpages and to champion good practice at the Mathematical Institute.