Dame Teresa Rees obituary

Teresa Rees, professor emerita of social sciences at Cardiff University, who has died of cancer aged 74, was an enthusiastic and effective campaigner for gender equality, and played an important role in bringing about change in universities and in how public policy decisions are made in Wales and the European Union. She fervently believed in the capacity of research to improve the position of women in education, training and the labour market.

As one of the “seven wise women” who advised the European Commission on its Mainstreaming Communication to the Council of Ministers (1996), Terry helped embed the “gender mainstreaming” approach into EU policy-making. The legislation of the 1970s had reduced the gender pay gap, but had little effect on the entrenched concentration of women in low-paid, often part-time work. Mainstreaming attempts to address this by ensuring that no policy decision can be taken without an assessment first being made of its impact on equal opportunities (EO). Employers are held to account through regular gender monitoring.

As equal opportunities commissioner for Wales from 1996 to 2002, and one of those advising on equality matters when the National Assembly for Wales (now the Senedd) was set up in 1999, Terry also influenced the Welsh government’s “public sector equality duty”, which obliges public bodies in Wales to consider EO in all decisions.

In 2015 Terry was made a dame. The investiture was the second time she had met Queen Elizabeth II; on the first occasion, a lunch at Buckingham Palace, Terry explained the idea of mainstreaming. When the Succession to the Crown Act was passed in 2013, giving female children equal rights to their brothers in the line of succession, Terry claimed that Her Majesty had obviously got the message.

Terry was born in Wells, Somerset, oldest of the three children of Vera (nee Geddes-Ruffle) and Gordon Baggs, who ran a successful leather clothing business, for which Terry sometimes modelled in her teens. She went as a boarder to Clifton high school in Bristol, then studied sociology and politics at Exeter University, where, surprisingly, she became a keen cheerleader.

In 1973 Terry moved to Wales, soon joining University College, Cardiff (which became Cardiff University) as a research fellow. In 1974 she married Gareth Rees, a fellow sociologist at Cardiff. They worked together on many projects on the labour market, education and training in Wales and later travelled with their sons, Ieuan and Dyfrig, to spend periods of time at universities in Canada and Australia.

In 1988 Terry was appointed director of the Social Research Unit at Cardiff. She conducted research on and for trade unions, evaluated training provided by employers including the civil service, was an early assessor of the impact of IT on women’s employment, and specialised in policies to improve the employment of women in science, technology and medicine. She represented Wales on the National Equality Panel and contributed to their 2010 report An Anatomy of Economic Inequality in the UK.

Terry was one of a small team at Cardiff who, despite opposition from sceptical colleagues, introduced a part-time MSc in women’s studies in 1987, the first of its kind in Wales. This course offered places to mature professional women, some without first degrees, and its graduates were represented among the first elected members of the National Assembly for Wales.

After a period as professor of labour market studies at Bristol University (1995-2000), Terry returned to Cardiff as professor for social sciences. There she combined research on gender mainstreaming with, from 2004, the role of pro vice-chancellor for staff and students, then, between 2007 and 2010, pro vice-chancellor for research, the first woman to hold the post.

With a warm and witty style of leadership, Terry was a support and inspiration to colleagues, encouraging them to work on topics they really cared about. She advocated and practised a team approach to research and policy-making. She was a gifted communicator who made her points simply and with humour. At any equality-related event in Wales, London or Brussels, sooner or later someone would come up to her and say “‘Terry, you might not remember me but your advice … your suggestion … your introduction to … changed my life.”

From 1992 onwards she was a consultant to the EU on EO and training policy, and engaged in collaborative research projects including the European Technology Assessment Network reports (2000, 2010), which helped to change the way the EU and member states assess the quality of research, and the Female Empowerment in Science and Technology Academia report. Terry was also on the steering group for the Welsh government’s 2016 report on women and STEM-related study and careers. Her research showed how women gradually fall behind their male counterparts in STEM careers, and she argued that gender blindness can lead to bad science and decisions – for instance if women are ignored in medical research and automotive design.

She chaired two “Rees reports” for the Welsh government on how to support students in higher and further education: Investing in Learners (2001), which led to the introduction of a grant subsidising students’ maintenance costs; and Fair and Flexible Funding (2005), which recommended the introduction of top-up fees.

Terry’s last research role at Cardiff came as principal investigator for the WAVE (Women Adding Value to the Economy) project, which began in 2012, but she was forced to step down two years later after her diagnosis with brain cancer.

Terry’s marriage was dissolved in 2004. She is survived by Ieuan and Dyfrig, her grandchildren, Alanna, Harri, Gruffudd, Caio and Betsan, and her brothers, Stephen and Simon.