Breaking Barriers: ECU earns prestigious Cygnet Award again for dedication to women in STEMM

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Breaking Barriers: ECU earns prestigious Cygnet Award again for dedication to women in STEMM

Thursday, 20 July 2023

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It's a prestigious national award recognising the outstanding efforts by institutions to deliver gender-equal opportunities and outcomes, with a focus on practices to eliminate the systemic barriers for those in the Australian Higher Education and Research sectors.

For the second time, Edith Cowan University (ECU) has received a Cygnet Award; part of the international Athena Swan accreditation program managed by Science in Australia Gender Equity Limited (SAGE) the only transformational gender equity, diversity and inclusion program of its kind in Australia.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Regional Futures) Professor Cobie Rudd, who has led the Athena Swan program at ECU since 2015, said she is delighted to receive a second nod to the sustained work being done at ECU.

In what she has described as meaningful, systemic, structural and cultural change in gender equity, diversity and inclusion, Professor Rudd admits there is still a way to go.

"Because of our advanced data tracking and monitoring system for Athena Swan, we don't necessarily choose areas to profile where we're doing well in sector-wide outcome comparisons but in fact, areas where we're falling short in terms of results," Professor Rudd said.

"So, we're not claiming success overcoming the difficulties of career progression for women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Maths and Medicine (STEMM), but we are highlighting a significant body of work to remedy issues, that is important to share with the sector. In the spirit of Athena Swan, we focused on what we know are the problems, why they are problems, and some strategies that haven't worked, and some that might."

Professor Rudd said creating more diversity in STEM education and careers, including more women in leadership roles, is a sector-wide - if not global issue that can't be solved simply.

"Workplaces often have to refine interventions several times before they succeed in creating positive change. For the iterative process to work, we need to embrace the wins as much as the lessons learned," Dr Bredehoeft said.

"That means being honest and transparent about what's been achieved, and adapting future actions to be more effective, as ECU has done. My warmest congratulations to the team at ECU."

To find out why more Australian institutions are a part of the SAGE framework for tangible and meaningful change, head to the website.

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