Macquarie receives SAGE Athena SWAN Bronze award

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All things being equal: Supporting the progress of talented women in STEMM like Dr Sophie Calabretto is at the heart of Macquarie’s SAGE action plan.

Macquarie has been awarded SAGE Athena SWAN Bronze accreditation in recognition of action we’ve taken to address gender inequity in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine (STEMM) disciplines and achieve tangible outcomes across the University.


The SAGE Athena SWAN Bronze accreditation recognises institutions’ commitment to advancing the careers of staff from diverse backgrounds and addressing the underrepresentation of women in STEMM. Achieving a bronze award requires institutions to conduct in-depth self-assessment of their structures, systems and culture to identify gender equity-related gaps and barriers, then propose a robust and measurable SAGE action plan to address these.

“I am extremely proud that Macquarie has been awarded a SAGE Athena SWAN Bronze award,” says Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton. “This is an internationally recognised acknowledgement of our ongoing commitment to, and progress towards, gender equity at Macquarie.

“The accreditation process has been highly collaborative, involving colleagues across the University. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to achieving this accreditation – in particular our Gender Equity Self-Assessment Team (GESAT) members for their participation in the process, and GESAT co-chairs Distinguished Professor Lesley Hughes and Pete Boyle and previous co-chair Professor Sherman Young for their stewardship.”

Macquarie’s SAGE action plan aligns closely with our Workplace Gender Equity Strategy and has already begun yielding results, including:

  • a redesign of the academic promotion process to make it more inclusive
  • the piloting of innovative approaches to mitigate bias in STEMM, such as anonymised recruitment at long-listing stage
  • increased representation of academic women in Engineering from 5% to 25% in just 18 months.

“We know that we need to be bold and innovative to create real change for equity, diversity and inclusion, and at Macquarie we’re ensuring we focus on addressing the causes of underrepresentation and inequality, not the symptoms,” says Professor Dowton. “We’re already seeing the impact of this approach and will continue to make it a key priority for our university.”


For more information on our gender equity strategy and our Athena SWAN application please visit the Towards Gender Equity website.

 

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