2023 Highlights

We have had another busy and exciting year with HRM, which is a testament to the amazing engagement and enthusiasm of the HRM board, sub-committees and our whole collective. As we reflect on what HRM achieved in 2023, we would again like to thank you all for taking part in our events and initiatives, and for helping make HRM so successful.

During 2023, we have been very pleased to see the establishment of MOSAIC at our Faculty, and we are looking forward to contributing to the mission of MOSAIC as members and allies. We also congratulate Betty Exintaris, a HRM member, on her appointment as Associate Dean Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. We look forward to working closely with MOSAIC and Betty over the coming years. This year we have also strengthened our ties with the EMCR Committee and the Faculty’s Diversity and Inclusion Committee, and have made new connections with Fiona Marshall, the Director of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at Monash.

This year we sponsored five of our members to attend Science Meets Parliament to represent HRM. This was the first year we were able to sponsor two members to attend in person, in addition to three attending online. We also ran various events and workshops, including peer reviews of grants, an ‘Ask Me Anything’ session, three Consumer Engagement workshops, an Afternoon Tea with Prof. Renee Ryan, and a Diversity Works board game event.

In another exciting achievement, HRM contributed to the revision of the Faculty’s Research Performance Standards, which are used as benchmarks for promotion. We advocated for the inclusion of new metrics around Engagement and Mentoring to better emphasise that how we conduct our research and education is just as important as traditional measures of success. The Associate Dean of Research, Prof Peter Scammells, said that the metrics developed by HRM were “...explicitly incorporated to reflect the behaviours that the Faculty values and recognises.”

We remain very aware of the continuing gendered impacts of COVID-19, with the inequities of these impacts becoming more evident this year. To this end, we want to be proactive in proposing ideas to advocate on behalf of women researchers and professional staff. HRM remain outcome-focused, seeking to leverage our collective networks, skills and voices to promote women research leaders at all levels and in all spheres. We look forward to 2024 with a continued commitment to building and reinforcing HRM collective networks.