About us
Through respectful collaboration and genuine relationships, the network aims to see all people flourish and effectively contribute to the community and culture of the University as well as to wider Northern Irish society and beyond.
Mission Statement
‘Women & Men collaborating to enable women to fulfil their potential.’
Aim
To provide a supportive and collegiate space to:
- Build relationships and connections across the University.
- Encourage personal and professional learning and development.
- Recognise and celebrate the achievements of women.
- Collectively advocate for and influence change.
Women's Network Group Discussion
Women's Network Current and Historic Goals
The Year Ahead
As we look ahead to next year, we are excited to see our work in the areas of domestic abuse, gender
equality, menopause, mentoring and period poverty continue to grow. We are committed to providing
more opportunities that will allow members to connect with one another in person, online and informally.
The Valuing Voices oversight group will help to champion the staff voice on issues that matter to them.
White Ribbon NI
- Continue raising awareness of the White Ribbon ‘just say no’ message and support fundraising activity for the charity.
International Women's Day
- Continue raising awareness of gender equality through key events linked to International Women’s Day.
Mentoring
- Re-launch the Women’s Network mentoring scheme
Influence Policy and Development
- Work with the Chief People Officer on the gender pay gap.
- Plan a range of events across the year, including a conference and regular In Conversation With events to build engagement within the network.
- Continue working with internal and external partners to help meet our goals/contribute to EDI, Athena Swan, Wellbeing and Valuing Voices priorities.
- Support the development of one menopause café at each campus, with internal and external expertise ‘advice on hand’.
- Partner with People Development to encourage Aurora Alumni to contribute to Women’s Network priorities and actions.
- Continue working with the Wellbeing team on Period Poverty to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to ‘anyone who needs them’.
General Work
- Focus on women and caring and identify practical ways the network can help to provide support to members with caring responsibilities.
- Plan a range of events across the year, including a conference and regular In Conversation With events to build engagement within the network.
- Continue working with internal and external partners to help meet our goals/contribute to EDI, Athena Swan, Wellbeing and Valuing Voices priorities.
Campaigns
White Ribbon NI
- Achieve White Ribbon Accreditation
- Just Say No message embedded across the university
- University-wide education and registration with the Safe Space Initiative from Onus (NI) Ltd.
Period Poverty
- Support UUSU's Period Poverty Action Group and extend the provision of free period products on every campus
Menopause
- University-wide launch of the Menopause Policy and supporting Resource Pack
- Training and awareness -raising for staff and managers to support women experiencing Pre-Menopause, Peri-Menopause and Menopause
Influence Policy and Development
- Support the development of wellbeing policies that support women in the workplace
- Collaborate with the Health, Safety and Wellbeing team to promote guidance and training for a better understanding of menopause in the workplace.
- Support the development of the Domestic Abuse policy and other gender-based violence initiatives, including facilitating Safe Space training.
- Advocate Wo/men’s Network support for caring responsibilities, mid-life reviews, and workplace cross-generational mentoring and support, to ensure the lifelong, continuous growth of our membership.
Mentoring and Engagement
- Partner with the Aurora Women’s Leadership community to facilitate synergistic connections for our women leaders, Network Champions and Men as Allies.
- Re-launch our improved, tailored mentoring programme.
Mentoring
A mentoring scheme is available through the network.
Full guidelines on the approach to the mentoring is available but key points to note are:
- Mentoring through the network is informal and cross-institutional, enabling relationships to be developed across job grades, categories, roles and genders.
- Mentoring is of mutual benefit to both mentor and mentee.
- It is intended that a mentor should only have one mentee.
- The nature of the mentoring relationship should be agreed between mentor and mentee but should not be onerous to either party.
If you would like to have a mentor or be a mentor, please contact womensnetwork@ulster.ac.uk
Women's Network on your campus
Each Ulster University campus has dedicated Women's Network representatives responsible for membership liason and event organisation. For more information on events please contact womensnetwork@ulster.ac.uk.
Women's Network Champions
Professor Karise Hutchinson
Professor
Professor Raffaella Folli
Research Director - Modern Languages & Linguistics
Janet Peden
Director of Library Services and University Librarian
Geoff Gillan
Head of Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Professor Malachy O'Neill
Director of Regional Engagement
