Guidance and resources

The following policies, guidance and external resources are related to the Athena Swan initiative at Heriot-Watt. If you know about other relevant resources not shown here, please send details to equality@hw.ac.uk.

Heriot-Watt practice and policies 

Information on Family Friendly policies including maternity, paternity, adoption, shared parental leave, unpaid parental leave, emergency dependants leave, time out for antenatal appointments, and flexible working.

You will also find the University's promotions, remuneration, equality and diversity, and performance and development policies.

The University has developed an inclusive workload framework to ensure workloads are fair and transparent including consideration of part-time modes of employment.

Your home life and your work life are rarely completely separate. What’s happening at home has an influence at work and vice versa.  Here we share some of the different ways Heriot-Watt can support you in finding the optimum balance in your family, personal and work commitments at our UK campuses. Case studies demonstrate real-life examples.

Starting or adding to your family can be a wonderful and exciting time. As you transition to your new circumstances,  these tailored coaching sessions provide structure and support to help you work through the issues that are important to you, such as maintaining work/life balance or furthering your career whilst being a parent.

A peer support network of staff and students at Heriot-Watt who are parents and/or carers. An online Teams space provides a forum for sharing experiences, exchanging tips and advice, and connecting with others. The network aims to have a few in-person gatherings per year. 

The University supports staff and students to continue to breastfeed on their return to work or study. We provide dedicated facilities for breastfeeding, expressing and storage of milk at our Edinburgh and Dubai campuses. Where dedicated facilities are not available, arrangements can be made on a case-by-case basis with your line manager, to provide you with a private, healthy and safe environment to breastfeed/express. Where possible you will also be provided with access to a secure, clean fridge to store the milk.

If you would like to know more about your local dedicated facility, to arrange a visit or gain longer term access, please contact the relevant person listed below:

Edinburgh Nursing Room: Hugh Nisbet Building, Room 2.22, contact: Main Reception, extn 3501, or email Frontdesk@hw.ac.uk This room is fully equipped. There is also a small rest/feeding room at the Lyell Centre on the first floor: Room 1.06., lockable, drop-in use (not bookable,  but contact Fiona Jackson faj@bgs.ac.uk or Malcolm Laird mdcl@bgs..ac.uk  if any problems or feedback). Kitchen facilities nearby for bottle sterilising and storage.

Borders Nursing Room: Room 216 of the High Mill, contact: tex-business-support@hw.ac.uk

Dubai Nursing Room: Female Block, contact: Hari Krishnan m.harikrishnan@hw.ac.uk

Baby changing facilities are provided all around our campuses. Please contact Main Reception if you are having trouble locating a suitable facility.

External resources

Publications

Web resources and tools

Key information

Equality, Diversity & Inclusion