Researchi indicates that inclusive organisations that value diversity, including having gender diverse leadership teams, outperform those that don’t. Australian university science graduates reached gender parity over 20 years ago. Geoscience Australia (GA), however, continues to face the challenge of attaining greater gender equity across the organisation, and especially within its senior leadership. GA is committed to improving its performance in gender equity by creating a more inclusive workplace.
GA has joined the pilot Athena SWAN program in Australia, run by SAGE (Science in Australia and Gender Equity). This framework of accreditation, based on the UK Athena SWAN Charter, is recognised as a comprehensive and practical scheme to improve scientists’ careers by addressing gender inequity. The Charter of 10 principles encourages institutions and public research organisations to commit to a progressive approach to policies, practices and actions to improve their culture thus creating and supporting a more diverse workplace.
GA will submit an application in July 2019 for Bronze accreditation that will identify a set of actions to be implemented to address the gender equity challenges. We will continue to measure and analyse our data to determine if the actions are having a positive effect, thereby allowing us to build on improvements in creating a gender inclusive workplace and potentially enabling us to apply for Silver accreditation.
i for example: Desvaux, Devillard, de Zelicourt, Kossoff, Labaye and Sancier-Sultan, Wood, McKinsey, Women Matter: Ten years of insights on gender diversity, 2017; University of Melbourne, Building a Business Case for Gender Diversity, 2013;
Poster presentation for the Australian Geoscience Council Convention (AGCC) 2018
