Goal 5: Gender Equality

At Cranfield we value diversity and recognise the new perspectives that this can bring to our working, learning and teaching community. Through our diversity initiatives we are creating a culture in which everyone is able to fulfil their potential. Find out more on our equity, diversity and inclusion pages.

This is evidenced by our women/family friendly awards and recognitions:

• Athena Swan bronze accreditation
• Working Families employer accreditation

Policies and measures

Our policies and reports detailing the measures and actions we are taking to support women’s success at our university include our Maternity and Paternity Leave Policy, Whistleblowing Policy, Gender Pay Gap Report and Diversity Reporting and support for LGBTQ+ staff and students. Those reporting discrimination are protected through our Whistleblowing Policy and our Report and Support web pages.

In 2022 we launched our new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy. Our annual Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Report updates on the progress towards our gender targets for staff recruitment and senior academic and management positions. In 2021/22 Cranfield reviewed its family-friendly policies/benefits to benchmark itself against the HE sector. The following actions were taken:

• Increased our enhanced maternity pay scheme;
• Reviewed our paternity/partner policy, making paternity/partner leave a day one right;
• Launched a carers fund at the end of 2021 to enable colleagues with caring responsibilities to access financial support for attending work-related training;
• Implemented our working arrangements framework (hybrid working).

Childcare facilities for staff and students

We have a range family-friendly schemes including on-campus childcare facilities for staff and students. We also offer mentoring for our students and alumni.

Research, outreach and scholarships

Research is supported by Cranfield’s Gender, Leadership and Inclusion Centre. The Centre produces an annual 'Women to Watch' report and a Female FTSE Board report. The latter has fed into Government-led initiatives to set and meet targets for female representation on FTSE boards through the Davies Review and Hampton-Alexander Review.

We promote subjects to women through our scholarships and outreach programme; examples include British Council STEM Scholarships. Cranfield University is offering five fully-funded scholarships for female students from Turkey to study for a master’s degree at its UK campus.

In 2021/22, Cranfield again sponsored Milton Keynes Soapbox Science. This event aims to provide a unique opportunity for the public to learn about science straight from scientists, but also for 12 female scientists to share their science with an incredibly diverse audience, including many who might not normally participate in a science event. Seven of the twelve speakers were Cranfield staff or students.

Female engineers at Cranfield have achieved national award success with two named as Top 50 Women in Engineering award winners in 2022.

Cranfield is a member of the Women’s Engineering Society and sponsors International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) – the celebration of women in engineering that takes place on 23 June each year. The 2022 International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) event saw students from local secondary schools meet current Astronautics and Space Engineering students to build stomp rockets, find out about smart solar windows, join a talk about the Cranfield circular toilet, learn about providing safe and hygienic facilities to those without plumbing and, finally, attending a showcase of our Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre on research and innovation in the aviation industry.

Cranfield has a number of policies and reports detailing the measures and actions we are taking to support women’s success at our university.

These include our Maternity and Paternity Leave Policy, Gender Pay Gap Report and Diversity Reporting.

Other family-friendly schemes include on-campus childcare facilities for staff and students.