Faculty of Natural, Mathematical & Engineering Sciences

Equality, diversity & inclusion

We are committed to embedding equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) within the culture of the Department, so that everyone - staff and students - receives the support and opportunities they need to achieve their full potential.

What we are doing

The Department EDI Committee oversees all activities and feeds into the Faculty EDI Committee. We continually monitor our progress within the department through surveys and respond with decisive action plans as and when necessary.

We are proud of the achievements we’ve made, including achieving gender parity among academic, research and teaching staff, and increasing the proportion of female students on undergraduate courses, which have been above the national benchmarks since 2015.

Our Committee works to improve the following areas:

Proactive and inclusive recruitment - we take steps to make sure our job adverts are gender neutral in language and actively seek diverse candidates for these positions.
Promoting career progression at all levels - we have established support and mentoring structures for postgraduates, postdoctoral and early career researchers. In addition, our Committee has strong representation from colleagues at all stages of their career to enable inclusive decision making.
Nurturing collegial communities - we encourage and promote the creation of networks to foster cohesive communities, including the postdoc community, people of colour networks, and active involvement in the King’s parents and carers network.
Inclusive working environment - we promote a healthy work-life balance in our department with flexible working options, core hours of 10.00 – 16.00 for meetings and seminars, protected lunch breaks, and meeting-free Fridays.

Athena SWAN

We hold an Athena SWAN Bronze Award for our achievements in ensuring equality, diversity, and inclusion principles are embedded into the core of our Department.

We were commended particularly for the gender ratio of our students and academic staff, as well as for our inclusive recruitment strategies and the work we put into ensuring internal and external events such as seminar series are equitable.

Find out more about Athena Swan

Women in STEM season

Every year King's hosts Women in Science Season - a month-long celebration that takes place between the the UN International Day of Women and Girls in Science on 11 February and International Women’s Day on 8 March.

The campaign aims to bring together staff and students from across King's science faculties to explore how we break down barriers faced by women in STEM and build an equal place in science and technology, for the benefit of all.