Monash collective driving force behind boosting women in leadership roles
L-R: Associate Professor Karen Gregory, Dr Lauren May, Associate Professor Michelle Halls, Associate Professor Natalie Trevaskis
A collective established in 2019 to promote and foster an inclusive and equitable leadership environment for women in academia has played a key role in significantly increasing the number of women in senior leadership positions across Monash’s Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences.
Her Research Matters (HRM), is a grass-roots driven, outcome focused collective established in response to women currently only making up around 17 per cent of senior scientists within Australian universities.
Together with the support of the Faculty’s leadership team and PharmAlliance, HRM has been the driving force behind increasing the proportion of women Associate Professors and Professors from 23 per cent in 2019, to 36 per cent in 2023.
Founded by Dr Lauren May and Associate Professor Karen Gregory, and now co-chaired by Associate Professor Michelle Halls and Associate Professor Natalie Trevaskis, the group has rapidly expanded and now consists of over 110 members. Together, HRM focuses on increasing the awareness of current barriers to career progression, advocating for preferred solutions, and working as a collective to mitigate the impact of these barriers.
Associate Professor Michelle Halls said that aside from the more obvious barriers such as women often taking career breaks and juggling caring roles with work, recognising and addressing unconscious bias has been a key focus for both HRM and the broader Australian science and medical research sector in recent years.
“While there is still a way to go, it's been very encouraging to see some significant shifts across Australia’s science sector in recent years, including education and an increased awareness when it comes to addressing unconscious bias in relation to senior positions, grants and other career-enhancing opportunities,” said Associate Professor Halls.
Research shows that high-performing women are connected to powerful, supportive women-only networks. However, what distinguishes HRM is their highly inclusive approach - everyone, no matter their gender or career stage, are welcome to join the collective.
Associate Professor Karen Gregory says this inclusive approach has been key to HRM’s success.
“By working closely across the Faculty community, we’ve successfully engaged a very diverse range of staff and PhD students. The Faculty leadership has been extremely supportive and receptive to the idea from the start, and encouraged us to go forward, providing funding for us to run our activities,” said Associate Professor Gregory.
Monash University has a long history of commitment to gender equity, beginning with the appointment of its first Equal Opportunity Coordinator in 1987. But it too acknowledges that there’s still much to be done.
The University recently released its new Gender Equality Action Plan 2022 - 2025, which includes a commitment to tackling the underrepresentation of women in STEMM. Acknowledging that “the attraction and retention of women in STEMM remains a challenge,” the Plan pledges to prioritise the advancement of women’s careers in STEMM by investing resources to address gender disparity in these disciplines.
Dr Lauren May said the hope is the HRM model can be adopted by others elsewhere, beyond the Parkville campus.
“HRM has actively engaged the next generation of scientists, coordinated promotion review for Faculty researchers to address gender inequity at senior levels, and worked together with PharmAlliance to effect change at a global level. We’d love to see other Institutes apply this model,” says Dr May.
In addition to Dr May, Associate Professor Gregory and Associate Professor Halls, the 2023 HRM Executive Team includes Associate Professor Natalie Trevaskis, Professor Denise Wootten and Dr Simona Carbone. Pillar Leads include Dr Enyuan Cao and Rosemary Manning.
Ends