SAGE Athena Swan member organisations are facing a growing range of gender equality legislation, from WGEA target-setting and the National Higher Education Code to Prevent and Respond to Gender-Based Violence, to the Victorian Gender Equality Act 2020 and, from 2027, Horizon Europe Gender Equality Plan eligibility. These obligations are not separate from your SAGE Athena Swan work. For organisations doing SAGE well, they are largely the same work.
This resource series has been developed to help SAGE members understand how their SAGE Athena Swan pathway supports compliance across each of these frameworks and to help them make that alignment visible within their institutions.
What’s in the series
The series includes practitioner-level guidance and executive briefings for each framework, a consolidated compliance alignment map, and a standalone document on the distinctive value of SAGE Athena Swan in a regulated landscape.
Practitioner resources are designed for gender equity, diversity and inclusion practitioners, HR professionals and research administrators who need to understand how specific elements of their SAGE Athena Swan work map to compliance requirements, and what additional steps may be needed.
Executive briefings are designed to be shared with Vice-Chancellors, Deputy Vice-Chancellors and equivalent leaders. They provide a concise overview of each framework, how SAGE work contributes, what sits outside SAGE scope, and what action is needed at an institutional level.
The compliance alignment map brings all four frameworks together in a single reference, showing theme by theme where your SAGE work satisfies multiple obligations at once.
Beyond compliance: the distinctive value of SAGE Athena Swan makes the case for why the pathway matters beyond what it satisfies—the depth of data, intersectional analysis, causal understanding and continuous improvement that legislative compliance alone cannot produce.
We encourage all SAGE members to share these resources with the colleagues and leaders who need them. If you have questions or would like support applying this guidance in your context, please contact the SAGE team.
