ADMINISTRATORS have ended an Oxford University women-only fellowship because it breached equality laws.

The Joanna Randall-MacIver junior research fellowship, established in the 1930s for women studying fine arts, was deemed to be “discriminatory on the grounds of gender” by Oxford University’s Council.

As a result, other research fellowships could be under threat, including those run by Cambridge’s female-only college Newnham.

It is the first time that Oxford University has opened up a historically female-only fellowship to male applicants.

The fellowship is funded by the estate of British-born archaeologist and Oxford graduate David Randall-MacIver, who set it up in his wife Joanna's name after her death in 1932 and stipulated that it should only be awarded to female academics.

Former recipients include Jennifer Mundy, The Tate's head of Art Historical Research, and Georgina Herrmann OBE, an eminent archaeologist and the first woman to discover the Afghanistan’s Lapis Lazuli mines in the 1960s.

Alexandra Wilson, a professor of music and cultural history at Oxford Brookes University, said that her Randall-MacIver fellowship in 2004 transformed her career in academia.

“These posts are like gold dust, they are highly competitive. When I was applying it was very common to find music departments that were entirely male. Things have improved, but possibly not to full equality,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

“I do think it’s a rather regrettable consequence of a well-intended law that this opportunity for women should be removed.”