UTS announces new plan to address gender inequity in STEMM

Gender inequity in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine (STEMM) faculties continues to be a challenge across the tertiary sector. At UTS, this challenge is being tackled head on through a new strategic plan focussing on five key priority areas.

From reaching out to female students in primary and high school, right through to flexible work and promotions pathways for women in senior STEMM positions, UTS is setting its sights on closing the gender parity gap.

For the last six years, the UTS Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion has committed to the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) Athena Swan program. In 2018, UTS was among the first pilot institutions to be awarded Bronze accreditation for the initiative.

The next phase of the program builds on efforts to date, taking an intersectional approach to gender equity. Institutions are required to identify five key barriers to gender equity in STEMM faculties and to begin to address those barriers. The barriers, or priority areas, referred to as Cygnet Awards, form the crux of UTS’s new plan to address gender inequity in STEMM.

Our priority areas

1. Building the pipeline through outreach to attract women to Engineering and IT in early education. Currently, low numbers of women are drawn to Engineering and IT disciplines. This begins in early primary and continues through secondary and undergraduate education.

2. Supporting career progression for Higher Degree Research (HDR) students in the Faculty of Engineering and IT. UTS is losing talent due to lack of career progression pathways that work for women, especially for HDR and Early Career Research women.

3. Targeting recruitment to combat the gender imbalance in applications for STEMM positions. This will address the unequal numbers of women and men that are applying for positions in the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Engineering and IT.

4. Making flexible work the norm across STEMM work areas. Flexible work arrangements available at UTS are not well known or taken up in STEMM work areas. Flexible work provisions need to be applied equally across the university.

5. Promotion pathways to increase numbers of women ascending to senior positions in STEMM. This will address the unequal numbers of women applying for promotion in Science and FEIT, resulting in a gender imbalance that increases at every level of seniority.

This program is being overseen by Dr Bilquis Ghani, Gender Equity Programs Manager at the Centre for Social Justice & Inclusion. Dr Ghani says that the priority areas address barriers women face right from primary and secondary school through to university study and then senior levels of academia.

‘In essence, the five key priority areas take a pipeline approach – starting from encouraging girls and young women at school and undergraduate levels to consider careers in STEMM areas, and supporting Higher Degree Research students through their years of study at UTS to understand what it takes to be in academia,’ Dr Ghani said.

‘Then optimising their chances for recruitment and promotion and addressing some of the flexible work provisions they and their families may need as they move through the ranks of academia.

‘We want UTS to be an attractive place to work for women seeking academic careers in STEMM and we’re lucky to have the faculties working closely with us too. Their support has been at the heart of real change. These efforts will have ripple effects across our institution.’

Supporting the implementation of these priority areas will be Associate Professor Anne Gardner, who has been named as the new Academic Lead for the Athena Swan program at UTS.

The Academic Lead for Athena Swan represents and advocates for Athena Swan program initiatives and chairs the Diversity and Inclusion Implementation Committee at UTS.

Professor Gardner said through her position as Academic Lead she is seeking to bring ‘positive disruption’ to gender equity in STEMM at UTS.