Support grows for women academics engaged in research

A project supporting women researchers at the University of Northampton is making strides.

Supporting Women’s Writing in the Time of Covid-19 was set up in early 2021 to address systemic barriers to women academics’ research and writing.

The project, which is funded by the Association of Commonwealth Universities, is led by Dr Rachel Moss (pictured left), Lecturer in History, Dr Sonya Andermahr (pictured right), Reader in English, and Dr Phillippa Bennett (centre), Senior Lecturer in English.

Its first event was a workshop led by Dr Sarah Rutherford, a diversity, gender and organisational culture consultant. The next will be a writing retreat in June, hosted by Dr Pam Lock, with more information to come.

Dr Moss said: “We’ve been delighted with the early success of the project – we saw 40 UON researchers sign up for the first workshop.

“We would love to see more women researchers join us, help the network grow and take advantage of our free events.

“They can do this by emailing rachel.moss@northampton.ac.uk.”

The project aims to improve the environment for women academics at the University of Northampton by creating supportive spaces for them to develop their writing practice, and by identifying and targeting systemic barriers within the institution to their research process. The project has two related strands: helping women develop their own writing practice within a community of other women researchers, and identifying wider systemic barriers to research progress and outputs at the University.