Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 17 May 2022
565. Deputy Carol Nolan asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the funding that has been provided to date by his Department or any bodies under the aegis of his Department to support the national gender equality dashboard for higher education institutions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [24240/22]
Amharc ar fhreagraI would like to thank the Deputy for her question.
The Higher Education Authority (HEA) has been collecting gender disaggregated staff data from Irish higher education institutions (HEIs) that are in receipt of annual core-grant funding from the HEA since 2015. This data is published annually by the HEA in the Higher Education Institutional Staff Profiles by Gender and is publicly available at: hea.ie/policy/gender/statistics/. These profiles provide information on key indicators which contribute to the assessment of gender equality in Irish HEIs. This publication offers a valuable baseline from which progress can be measured, and includes all grades of staff, in all publicly funded HEIs.
As well as listing the gender of each president/or equivalent, the gender-balance on governing authority/body, academic council, and executive management teams is provided per HEI, and the sector summaries indicate the number of institutions that have a minimum 40% of each gender on these key decision-making bodies.
Staffing information collected includes:
- Staff by category of post (academic core-funded staff, Professional, Management and Support core-funded staff, research/specialist academic staff, research/specialist Professional, Management and Support Staff)
- Academic staff by discipline
- Academic staff by contract type
- Professional, Management and Support Staff by contract type
- Professional, Management and Support Staff by pay scale
The profiles also list Athena Swan institutional and departmental awards attained by HEIs. Athena Swan awards are important indicators of progress towards gender equality.
On 8 March 2021, I launched the national gender equality dashboard for higher education institutions. This dashboard visualises data collected by the HEA. The dashboard was developed by Maynooth University and provides, for the first time, an interactive and comparative visualisation of key staff data and gender profiles from Irish higher education institutions. It is funded locally by Maynooth University and is a key action in the university’s Gender Action Plan 2018-2022 available here (www.maynoothuniversity.ie/sites/default/files/assets/document/MU%20Gender%20Equality%20Action%20Plan%202018-2022-WEB.pdf).
