The Women in Engineering Collaboration Symposium – To Diversity and Beyond began in 2016, an initiative by The University of Queensland (UQ) who saw the need for universities to work together to increase the overall pool of females studying engineering across Australia.
The symposium aim was all about sharing what’s currently working in gender equity programs and developing best practice methods to achieve one common goal – to increase the female cohort of students studying engineering and develop female talent for an industry that is ready. By combining resources at this symposium and working collaboratively, data has shown an increase across the board of females studying engineering.
Due to successful group outcomes, this event was held again in 2018, with an open invitation to universities and industry, with UQ leading a symposium held at RMIT University in Melbourne to share resources and learnings from similar programs across Australia. UQ Executive Dean of Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology, Professor Vicki Chen stated “we want to see broad systemic change that can benefit industry and the wider community in Australia and globally, not just at UQ, and we fundamentally believe that schools, universities and industry need to collaborate if this is to be achieved.”
By understanding the existing gender equity educational programs and recruitment initiatives targeting increased participation of females in engineering studies across each of the universities, we have been able to collectively identify further opportunities to increase female participation in engineering, eliminate barriers and work collectively to meet long term objective of developing female talent for industry. In 2019 the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales are partnering to host and deliver a broader symposium which will include students and educators in addition to industry partners. The University of Queensland will organise another collaboration symposium in 2020 – location still to be determined.
Image from the 2018 Symposium hosted by RMIT University, Melbourne 11-12 October.
