It has now been six months since
the Women in Physics group was rejuvenated at the AIP congress in December.
Since then we've had renewed motivation from the AIP council to support
our aim, seen a blog established to support the community, have seen our
committee members co-opted to a number of other positions in the AIP and now have
picked our 2015 Women in physics lecturer.
It's
probably time that we started to think strategically about what our aims are up
to December 2016, and how we are going to move towards them. So with that in mind, I’m (Helen – Chair of
the Women in Physics group) putting together a strategy, outlining our issues and
suggesting an (realistic) action to undertake.
So I thought I’d put this to you all – please add your thoughts in the
comments! What I’ll do is collate them
and put a finalised strategy and action to the committee.
Women in Physics group draft strategy 2014-2016
What are the BIG issues?
1.
Vast drop in young women taking high-school
physics in Australia.
2.
Women aren’t reaching top positions in
physics and physics-based industries.
3.
Women in developing countries in need of
support for their science.
What do we do
already?
The
group already assists in the well-established AIP women in physics lecture
tour, definitely a positive step towards addressing issue 1 through a positive role
model.
Established
session at AIP congress every two years.
This has been very successful, along with the establishment of a ‘Women
in Physics’ breakfast. Excellent
networking for issue 2.
Establishment
of Women in Physics blog http://womeninphysicsoz.blogspot.com.au/
, rather than a newsletter. The idea is
that it will be more ‘evolving’ and allow more people to be involved and
comment.
What are the
difficulties in doing more?
We’re
quite a diverse bunch. Think that the
reason that the astronomers seem a lot more focused (and successful in these
activities) is that they are united about a science focus. With a rapidly declining number of just
physics departments it is getting harder to identify who is a physicist. We are all pretty cross disciplinary these
days.
No
one is collating the numbers. Gender
balance statistics used to be collected, but now aren’t.
Geography,
a problem for all Australian societies – membership is spread over an area the
size of Europe. That said, collating
numbers should enable us to identify where people are so that we run
Possible things to
help us do more?
Partnerships
– Women in Engineering, RACI, Women in Astronomy?
Involvement
with Science Academy’s SAGE project?
Seeking
sponsorship – have seen some very impressive work by the UNSW engineers in seeking sponsorship
for their events http://wieunsw.weebly.com/
How to move forward?
At
present, partnership must be key. I
propose to approach the Women in Chemistry group of RACI, and suggested a joint
event in Sydney (they have run networking events in Melbourne, so would
increase their reach too). Propose event
of ‘science leadership’ – plus networking after.
