University disputes claims over women staff at medical school (From The Oxford Times)

University disputes claims over women staff at medical school

9:40am Tuesday 14th February 2012 in Oxford By Fran Bardsley

OXFORD University has hit back at claims it is failing to employ women in senior roles in medicine.

It was reported yesterday that the university did not have a single tenured female professor on its medical school staff in 2010.

But the university said this figure excluded women who were not qualified medical doctors and ignored many employed by the university and partners such as the Wellcome Trust.

Spokesman Jonathan Wood said: “There are at least 43 female professors in Oxford’s medical sciences division, including some of the university’s most eminent, world-leading medical researchers, like Val Beral, Kay Davies, Frances Ashcroft, Fiona Powrie, Irene Tracey and Helen McShane.”

Prof Ashcroft was recently named the 2012 L’Oreal Women in Science European Laureate for her work on neonatal diabetes, and Prof Powrie was named winner of the 2012 Louis-Jeantet Prize for work on the immune system.

Mr Wood could not give the exact percentage of men to women on the payroll but said that even within the “limited definition” of professors who qualified as doctors, there was now at least one medical researcher at Oxford who fitted that category.

The chief medical officer for England has proposed that medical schools seeking funds for biomedical research beyond 2016 must have achieved an Athena Swan silver award, marking a commitment to gender equality.