Recent News

University of Galway celebrates success at Irish National Athena Swan Awards 2025 (November)

University of Galway was honoured with a Silver Institutional Athena Swan Award at the Irish National Athena Swan Awards on 12 November, recognising an important milestone in our continued efforts to advance equality and foster an inclusive culture. 

This award highlights the collective efforts of our staff and students in driving meaningful change and embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion into the University’s structures and practices.

In addition to the institutional recognition, five University of Galway Schools were also celebrated for their achievements:

• J.E. Cairnes School of Business and Economics – Silver Award
• School of Nursing and Midwifery – Bronze Renewal
• School of Languages, Literatures and Culture – Bronze Award
• School of Political Science and Sociology – Bronze Award
• School of Psychology – Bronze Renewal

While acknowledging that the University has had a difficult past in relation to gender equality, this success demonstrates the progress we have made – further details here – and our determination to continue this work. Our new Gender Equality Action Plan 2025–2030 (GEAP 4) will build on this foundation, guiding us towards deeper, lasting change and ensuring that equality, diversity and inclusion remain at the heart of everything we do as a community.

There is always more work to do to create an equitable environment for all our staff and students, and we look forward to continuing to work collectively to achieve this vision. Through our collective efforts, we aim to cultivate a University culture that places our people and their lived experience at the centre.

To mark these achievements, an internal celebration will take place on Monday, 2 December in the Michael D. Higgins Auditorium (12:00–14:00). All staff and students are warmly invited to join us in celebrating this important milestone together.

University of Galway’s adoption of the ALTITUDE Charter

University of Galway celebrated the adoption of the ALTITUDE Charter for Universal Design in Tertiary Education, 29th September, with our University President, Professor David J. Burn.

The learner population in tertiary education is becoming increasingly diverse, and students’ lives are also increasingly complex. The responsibility on educational institutions to provide equitable access for all is now strongly embedded in Irish legislation, and national tertiary education strategies contain more specific goals to implement a Universal Design approach, (SOLAS, 2020; Higher Education Authority, 2022).

Universal Design, or UD for short, offers us an evidence-based approach to engender this mindset, and is increasingly seen as a central tenet of our response to rising diversity, (Centre for Excellence in Universal Design, 2022).

Funded by the HEA under PATH 4, the ALTITUDE Project was an extensive cross sectoral collaboration involving six national agencies, fifteen higher education (HE) institutions and six Education and Training Board (ETB) representatives, nominated by Directors of FET to represent the Further Education and Training sector. The Charter was launched in Spring 2024, alongside an accompanying technical report and implementation toolkit.

Dr Donal Fitzpatrick, Senior Advisor on the European Accessibility Act with the Centre of Excellence in Universal Design shared his knowledge on Universal Design in Education and his experience of working with partners in University of Galway and across the higher education sector.

^{L:R Dr. Deirdre McHugh (University of Galway), Dr. Donal Fitzpatrick, Prof. David Burn, President, University of Galway, Dr Helen Maher (University of Galway)}

^{L:R Dr. Bairbre Flemming (UCD), Dr. Maureen Haran (ATU), Dr. Deirdre McHugh (University of Galway), Prof. David Burn, President, University of Galway, Dr Helen Maher (University of Galway) and Dr. Lisa Padden (UCD)}

^{Front Row: Dr, Deirdre McHugh, Prof. David Burn, President, Dr Helen Maher &  Róisín Birch (Access Centre) 
Back Row:  Izzy Tiernan, Miriam Collins, Niamh Griffin ( University of Galway Students)}