Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Women are not a minority. But an observer from another planet looking at the number of women working in Australia's universities and research institutions could be forgiven for thinking that they are. The fact is that women are chronically under-represented in our universities and research organisations. For the Greens, this is totally unacceptable in 21st century Australia.

To cite one example from one high-profile research intuition which typifies the problem:

At the undergraduate, PhD and postdoctoral level more than 50% of our staff are women. At the laboratory head level the number drops to less than 25% and at a professorial level, it drops further to 10%. Indeed, when the previous director … at that point the only female professorial member of staff in our 94-year history—retired after 13 years in the job, none of our 20 professorial fellows was female.

In this respect I would like to recognise the lead that the National Health and Medical Research Council, the NHMRC, has taken in highlighting this problem. I believe that it has put out a marker that the gender imbalance in science and research can no longer be tolerated. The NHMRC has rated the country's 82 universities and institutes on measures including child care, flexible work arrangements and targeted fellowships, and its findings were pretty woeful. Of the 82 universities and research organisations approached, fewer than half replied. Of the 46 that did reply, almost 70 per cent were rated unsatisfactory or poor. Just 13 were rated 'good' and two 'outstanding'. And when it came to grant applications, there was a similar story.

The NHMRC found that, while women made up more than 60 per cent of the more than 500 applications last year for its Early Career Fellowships, of the 244 applications for senior fellowships, only 33 per cent were from women. The NHMRC has previously sought to level the playing field by making fellowships open to part-time researchers and taking account of career interruptions to give carers more time to prove up their credentials. To its credit, it has recognised that more needs to be done. As the NHMRC chief Warwick Anderson has recognised: 'What it boils down to is that we are just throwing away talent.'

A key problem is that of work-life balance and job insecurity. The time when many upcoming researchers are establishing their career is also the time when many women have to decide whether to continue with their career or to start a family. This is not a conflict they should have to face and it is not one that male researchers typically face. When one adds to that the problems of insecure work, which disproportionately affect women more than men, you can see the invidious decision that many women face. There is a clear need to correct the bias in the system, which is what the NHMRC is seeking to do. It has also been suggested by some that the 'unpleasantness' of the peer-review process, gender differences that influence taking on responsibility, and overt discrimination are part of this bias. There also seems to be a lack of strategic planning by organisations about how to keep women in research and universities.

I encourage other bodies in the research sector to help rid it of gender discrimination and to put in place strategic planning for boosting the number of women in science. They are missing out if they do not. What the NHMRC is now suggesting is that it could use its control of $800 million in annual medical funding to make the allocation of funding conditional on much better gender equity policies from institutions. That is a pretty powerful carrot.

As well as NHMRC taking a lead on this, there are models on how to effectively boost women in science being used in other countries. In the UK, there is the Athena SWAN Charter, which was designed to help organisations advance the representation of women in science, technology, engineering, medicine and mathematics, STEMM. This is exactly the sort of framework this country's research institutes should look at.

Righting the gender imbalance at our universities and research institutes would be a huge win for research creativity. This dearth of women in research does not just mean that they are missing out; it also means that their ideas are missing. Their innovation is missing. And that means that research institutions and wider society are being denied talent and potentially a whole range of discoveries and advances. Boost the number of women in science and the Greens believe that everyone benefits.

See this speech in context