INDUSTRY & RESEARCH campusreview. com. au
What STEM needs now
The Coalition’ s announcement on the eve of the federal election that it would commit $ 31.2 million to support women looking to pursue STEM careers was backed with optimism by tertiary groups and institutions, including Universities Australia.
That election promise may now prove difficult to deliver, depending on the final shape of the new Parliament, which experts have tipped could take weeks to determine. But, if implemented, it would initiate internships and post-school career advice. It was designed to encourage female students into future-proofing disciplines and enables them to realise their full potential, Universities Australia deputy chief executive Catriona Jackson says.
There remains a great need for such programs to expose young people, especially women, to the marvels of science and, more importantly, to how rewarding and limitless STEM careers can be, Jackson says. The rewards reaped, she adds, are threefold – for the individual, industry and the national economy.
Such a program has the potential to address a longstanding trend in which many women take up STEM subjects during their tertiary degrees but eventually select other career paths. It is similar to the notably successful Canadian internship model, which places particular emphasis on internships for PhD researchers in industry and has led to a ratio of seven researchers in business for every 1000 workers – compared with three per 1000 workers in Australia.
Here, Jackson sits down with Campus Review to discuss the need for such a program and its potential.
CR: How does the funding announcement allow Australia to mirror, potentially, the successful Canadian internship model?
CJ: We are certainly supportive of any model that helps young women who are either studying or considering studying STEM. We’ re supportive of a model that helps them work out what sort of career they might have. We know a large number of women are going in to study science, technology, engineering, and maths, and that’ s a fantastic thing. What we do also know, however, is that often it’ s not clear what sort of career path they should take after that. There is a bewildering and fantastic number of careers for them to take up – and it’ s growing every day – but we need to increase the visibility of those careers so they can take those options.
One thing we clearly know is that not every person who goes through a STEM degree and then a PhD will get a job in a university at a lab bench. There are just not enough jobs inside the universities, but also we’ re in a time when it’ s absolutely critical that we have more people in those disciplines working out in industry. This internship program has come at exactly the right time.
M @ uniaus
Science and tech fields must gather and retain talented women; that means showing the possibilities and providing support.
Catriona Jackson interviewed by Wesley Kington
Why do you think there is such a difference between the number of PhD researchers working in Australia at the moment and the number in Canada? I’ m not absolutely clear about the exact contrasts between here and Canada, but certainly women are being increasingly encouraged to go into STEM careers, and at the undergraduate level there are lots and lots of them. We know, however, as soon as we start going up the tree, they drop off, so at the undergraduate level about half are women, once you get to PhD it’ s about 30 – 40 per cent, and by the time you get to senior positions inside universities it’ s down to about a quarter. That’ s a drop we simply can’ t afford to sustain. That means people who have genuine talent are being lost to STEM and given the changes in the economy in Australia and worldwide, we simply can’ t afford to lose that kind of talent.
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