Research leaders will gather in Canberra today to help address the underrepresentation of women in science through an Academy-led initiative.
Over the next two days, representatives from the science and research sector will discuss how best to address gender equity in Australian science, and explore successful overseas initiatives including the UK’s Athena Swan Charter.
Representatives from the UK Equality Challenge Unit, who developed the Athena Swan Charter, will be attending the workshop to help brief attendees on their experience developing the charter model.
The Athena Swan Charter requires participant research institutions to develop a plan to address their own gender inequalities. Some UK research bodies now tie grant funding to participation in the program.
The head of the National Health and Medical Research Council, Warwick Anderson and Charles Darwin University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Sharon Bell will be making presentations at the workshop on the challenge of gender equity issues in Australian science.
The leaders of the SAGE forum steering committee, Nobel Prize winner and astronomer Professor Brian Schmidt and mathematician Professor Nalini Joshi, will also be speaking at the event.
Read more about the SAGE Forum Workshop.
Home page image: University of Melbourne PhD student Emma Grant. Photo: University of Melbourne Department of Microbiology and Immunology
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