This article argues that gender equality programmes in universities and colleges may operate as a form of ‘moderate feminism’, producing contradictions through simultaneously providing a site of resistance and complicity for feminists. Our argument draws on a critical and empirical analysis of the Athena SWAN (Scientific Women's Academic Network) charter mark, which originated in the UK. We argue that Athena SWAN is a product of neoliberalization within the UK's academic environments, reflecting the tendency towards accountability, metrics and the performative ‘doing’ of equality work within this context. We problematize the operationalization and implementation of Athena SWAN processes in departments and universities, describing contradictions and caveats. Athena SWAN can lead to benefits and (limited) achievements in terms of culture change and institutional initiatives. However, the burden of undertaking this work predominantly falls upon women and other marginalized groups, such as people of colour and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Equality programmes such as Athena SWAN are often poorly designed to address complex issues, such as intersectional identities and discrimination experienced by self‐assessment team members. Nevertheless, we identify potential in utilizing Athena SWAN as a site of resistance and means to foster collective solidarity to work against neoliberal practices.

The number of dual career couples in academia is growing due to the increasing proportion of women with a doctoral degree and the greater propensity of women to choose another academic as their partner. At the same time, international mobility is required for career advancement in academia, creating challenges for dual career couples where both partners pursue careers. This paper has two objectives: (a) to raise the increasingly important issue of dual career couples in academia and the gendered effect that the pressure for mobility has on career advancement and work–life interference; and (b) to present examples of recently established dual career services of higher education institutions in Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, responding to the needs of the growing population of dual career couples. Due to long established practices of dual career services in the USA, the European examples will be compared with US practices. This paper raises the significance of considering dual career couples in institutional policies that aim for an internationally excellent and diversified academic workforce. It will appraise dual career services according to whether they reinforce or address gender inequalities and provide recommendations to higher education institutions interested in developing services and programmes for dual career couples.

In the past 2 decades, many Certification and Award schemes (CAS) related to gender equality, diversity and inclusion have emerged in the higher education, research and industry sectors. According to a recent report, there are as many as 113 CAS which have been identified across Europe and beyond. These CAS aim at addressing inequalities in relation to the grounds of sex, gender, race, sexual orientation, and disability among others. The high number of CAS, and their continued growth, has taken place in parallel to the shift of policies and efforts from “fixing individuals” to “fixing the system.” In these schemes, gender equality is often understood as a structural, systemic challenge, with a recognition that advancing gender equality is complex and requires drivers and interventions at micro, meso and macro level. Studies focused on analysing and evaluating gender equality initiatives in higher education have been scarce, and often limited to specific schemes. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a better understanding of the CAS landscape through comparing two of the main gender equality schemes used by research-performing organisations in Europe Athena SWAN (in the UK) and Total E-Quality Award (in Germany). Based on qualitative interviews with stakeholders across Europe and document analysis, this paper focuses on strengths, challenges faced by and the impact of these CAS. This comparative exercise highlights particular learning points that can inform potential reviews of existing schemes and/or the development of new schemes such as a Europe-wide scheme. The latter is the focus of a Horizon 2020 project entitled CASPER (Certification-Award Systems to Promote Gender Equality in Research), which aims at making recommendations to the European Commission as to the feasibility of a Europe-wide CAS for gender equality in research organisations.

Academic and policy discourse has idealised academic mobility despite studies showing that it can have adverse effects on individuals’ experiences and contribute towards exacerbating existing inequalities. This article focuses on career (im)mobility stories of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) early career researchers that are variously sticky with emotion and affect. It places emphasis on the challenges, frictions and emotional tensions for early career researchers as part of this decision-making, irrespective of whether they decide to move or not. To do this, it deploys the concept of stickiness, which allows investigating the intersection and co-construction of embodied experiences of early career academics with the internationalisation discourse of academic excellence which are not often brought together. Focused on a largely under-examined population and context, it is based on a qualitative analysis of 15 in-depth interviews with a subsample of survey respondents, as part of a mixed methods study of Greek researchers in STEM. This article compares two groups of early career researchers who are seemingly at odds but have a lot in common: those with a highly international outlook moving to build an international profile and those who decide to stay and pursue research aspirations within a national context. Stickiness is demonstrated in two ways: stickiness to establishing an international profile and an academic career dictated by the internationalisation discourse; stickiness to affective considerations which are temporal, fluid and often understated. The main difference is how early career researchers address this stickiness: through the normative international mobility or participation in collaborative funding programmes. This article shows academic mobility is not only associated with benefits but can entail negative implications for individuals. It also provides empirical insights into hidden STEM early career researchers and elaborates a concept of stickiness in academic (im)mobility with discursive and affective layers, highlighting the importance of considering affect in career development scholarship.