APPC-AIP conference – What did the Women in Physics group get up to?

The women in physics group doesn’t currently have our own meeting, so the biennial AIP congress is the main time we have to get together and discuss the state of women in physics in Australia. This year however we had extra opportunity, as the congress was held jointly with the Asian Pacific Physics Conference, giving us a fantastic opportunity to connect and network with our colleagues from the Asia Pacific region. The WIP group held a number of activities during the conference, which all occurred on the 6th December. This action-packed day was kicked off by the WIP breakfast event with Prof Nalini Joshi as our guest speaker, followed by a Plenary by Prof Youngah Park and then in the afternoon we hosted two conference sessions with invited contributions by Prof Evvy Kartini and Prof Kate Joliffe. 

Breakfast event 

This great event was sponsored by EQuS, and we were very fortunate to have Prof Nalini Joshi as our guest speaker. Prof Joshi has been an instigator of the Science in Australia Gender Equality (SAGE) pilot that has been tremendously successful with 40 institutions currently signed up and seeking a bronze award in the approach to equity. She spoke on the motivations and need for such a pilot and outlined how all in the room could get involved and assist their institutions in making SAGE a success. The breakfast event also allowed us to thank a number of members for their support of the WIP group over the years, and to form a new committee for 2017/18. 

Plenary by Youngah Park 

After breakfast was done, we moved to the large theatre to hear Prof Youngah Park’s plenary lecture on ‘W-Leadership, Key driver of Innovative Engines’. Prof Park is currently President of Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning and has a very interesting, and almost unique perspective, as not only is she a senior scientist but she has also served as a member of the National Assembly of Republic of Korea from 2008 to 2012. So her duel perspective on the role and strengths of women in the physics workforces was particular insightful. In particular she outlined the large opportunities that gender innovation can give to a country at large, through sustaining economic growth and opening new markets.

Sessions 

As part of the conference we held two sessions, the first focusing on the state of Women in Physics in the Asian region and the second looking to how we can move forward from where we are. In our first session we heard from invited speaker Prof Evvy Kartini, from Indonesia’s National Nuclear agency about Women in Physics within Indonesia, her personal perspective on this as well as lots of very positive stories about how things are improving. For the remainder of the session we heard contributions from Japan, Korea and China and it was fascinating to see how the state of things are so different in each country. Though, the sad fact remains that in all countries a number of barriers have been identified to women participating fully in the physics world. 

In the session looking about how we move forward, we heard from Prof Kate Joliffe about the strategic mentoring program that has been instituted at Sydney university's chemistry department. After finding a dearth of women at band E (professional level) and determining that there was a lack of people putting in for promotion to this level – the department put in place a mentoring scheme . Now successful, they are implementing the scheme to lower levels, a very interesting case example of positive action. Also in the session Jo Turner reported on statistics she had gathered both from the conference diversity survey and also presented the picture of equity in AIP awards. Both revealed quite a lot about the community, with a very definite case for action – we’ll write a separate post about this.

Thanks to Sarah Maddison for the photos of the WIP events.

Women get a much needed boost in research funding gender equity plan

Sarah Maddison, Swinburne University of Technology

Women make up 44% of Australian academics, but just 24% of professors. One of the contributing factors for this disparity is that there are fewer women applying for research grants than men, even though women are just as successful at winning grants as men.

Given that research grant success is a key promotion criterion at most institutes, this hampers the ability of women to reach senior positions. So if we can encourage more women to apply for grants, then this could help increase the number of women professors.

This week saw the Australian Research Council (ARC) announce its Gender Equality Action Plan. This includes a range of actions aimed to ensure equal opportunity for men and women to participate in its National Competitive Grants Programme.

The ARC has already included maternity and paternity leave for all grants, and part-time options for early and mid career researchers with children or other carer responsibilities. It has also extended the eligibility criteria of some grants to account for time out of research for maternity leave and carer responsibilities.

Previously, the ARC would rate research output relative to the number of years since PhD completion, which would disadvantage women who had taken time out to start a family. Now research performance is based on the opportunity the researcher has had to do research.

The ARC has also introduced two prestigious Australian Laureate Fellowships specifically targeted for outstanding women.

The ARC Gender Equality Action Plan collects all these initiatives into a single document, along with new initiatives such as improving the gender balance of ARC selection committee members, raising awareness of parental leave entitlements and part-time options, and monitoring the impact of recent changes to eligibility and leave provisions.

ARC Centres of Excellence will also be required to develop and implement an equity plan.

It will also consider unconscious bias training for grant assessors and the ARC College of Experts, who are the people who ultimately decide who gets funded and who does not.

Why change is needed

These initiatives are long overdue and whole-heartedly supported by the academic community.

While there is still debate over whether parenthood decreases productivity among academics, various studies show that the rate of research output drops for women returning from maternity leave and their research output is affected until their children are teenagers.

This effect is also far greater for mothers than fathers. A recent study of 10,000 economists found the research productivity of mothers dropped by 17% compared to 5% for fathers.

Targets and quotas make some people uncomfortable. But such actions are probably needed to create the disruptive change required to re-balance gender inequities. While differences in the grant success rates for men and women are relatively small, there are enormous differences in the numbers of men and women applying for ARC funding across almost all disciplines.

In the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) areas, between three and seven times more men than women are applying for grants. In the HASS (health, arts and social science) areas, this drops to one to three times more men than women applying. There are more women than men applying for ARC grants in only two fields of research: education; and language, communication and culture.

This is why the two targeted Laureate Fellowships (one in STEM and one in HASS) are accompanied by additional funds to support ambassadorial activities by the recipient to promote women in research and to mentor early career researchers.

Now that research output is judged relative to opportunity, career breaks and non-research tasks (like heavy teaching and administrative loads) can be taken into consideration.

Going forward

The ARC has no control over the employment conditions or workplace culture in universities, but it does control the research funding. Because ARC grants are generally paid to organisations rather than to researchers, they can put conditions on the funding. The ARC requires research institutes to comply with the Workplace Gender Equality Act 2012 when signing funding agreements.

The ARC also expects institutes to have a gender equity policy in place. If the ARC wanted to push the issue, it could require institutes to hold a Workplace Gender Equality Agency Employer of Choice for Gender Equality award, for example. Or it could require institutes to participate in programs like the Science Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) initiative.

The Australian Academy of Science and the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering recently launched this pilot of the Athena SWAN Charter, which aims to improve gender equity and increase participation of women in STEMM (the second “M” is for medicine). The SAGE pilot is strongly supported by the ARC.

The Athena SWAN initiative began in the United Kingdom with the aim of encouraging and supporting women in STEMM careers. Since 2011, UK medical research institutes have been required to have an Athena SWAN award to receive research funds.

Will the ARC head in that same direction? There is no doubt that funding drives behaviour. And if the ARC Gender Equality Action Plan can drive good behaviours, then it will be a great success.

Sarah Maddison, Dean of Science, Professor of Astrophysics, Swinburne University of Technology

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Where do we go from here?

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.   

Articles of interest 17/03/15

Canada’s Perimeter institute recently had a feature on the ‘Pioneering women of Physics’ - including a former AIP Women in Physics Lecturer Jocelyn Bell Burnell. A great list, with some ‘usual’ and non usual suspects. In particular I loved the inclusion of Ursula Franklin who spoke at the International Women in Physics conference in Waterloo in 2014. What do you think of the list, who’s been missed out? Perhaps we should look to developing one with an Australian slant?

On a sadder note is The Conversation article on the fact that teachers will marks boys in maths more favorably than girls. It explains the results of a long-term study that it is thought reflects the societal expectation that ‘girls can’t do maths’. The article itself has prompted some debate in the comments. This issue has been hot in the press of late, with the Guardian running a story on the fact that girls ‘lack self-confidence’ in maths. This was prompted by research from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which again pinned the blame on expectations of parents and teachers. It’s a nebulous problem, but what approaches should we (as a society who don’t lack confidence in maths) look to take?