Advancing equity and inclusion: inSTEM conference report

inSTEM is an annual conference for Centre of Excellence members, dedicated to advancing equitable and inclusive practices for marginalised and underrepresented people in STEM, while also welcoming those committed to becoming better allies.

COE-CSI’s Chief Operating Officer, Jane Su, and Outreach and Communications Officer, Jason Major, attended the conference in Melbourne, while our Administration Officer, Gabriella Bate, attended online.

The conference was a mix of keynote talks and sessions focussed on building inclusive environments, sharing strategies for championing diversity, and developing strong allyship.

Prof Emma Lee OAM. Decolonising research: Respecting indigenous culture, land, and intellectual property

Day one kicked off with Prof Emma Lee‘s keynote address. Prof Lee is a Trawlwulwuy woman from Tebrakunna country, north-east Tasmania. Her research over the last 25 years has focused on Indigenous affairs, land and sea management, and policy and governance of Australian regulatory environments.

For decades Prof Lee has fought to bring Indigenous Tasmanians back into the contemporary story of a state that had long considered her people ‘extinct’. She learned that banging people over the head with facts about her people was failing to effect change – something that applies to science as well. Instead, she employed the technique motivated from her own cultural values of kinship that she describes as ‘love bombing’. Embracing love helped Prof Lee achieve constitutional reform in Tasmania, and the state’s first joint management plan of a protected area and establishing a market for cultural fisheries.

She continues this work as a professor at Federation University to further the research and social impacts of the National Centre for Reconciliation, Truth, and Justice.

Supporting CALD individuals

Four panel members shared their challenges and advice on how to support CALD (Culturally and Linguistically Diverse) individuals in the STEM workplace.

Panellists provided in-depth insights into their lived experience as culturally and linguistically diverse women in STEM. Each exhorted conference participants to celebrate cultural diversity within their Centres and emphasised that the first step to support CALD women is to reflect on and understand our individual unconscious biases that affect the culture of the workplace and the ability of women that identify as CALD to thrive. Policies and structures to mitigate any such (un)conscious biases need to be in place. As the panellist Dr Ruwangi Fernando said, “Diversity is a fact, and inclusion is a choice”.

Exploring trans, gender diverse, and gender fluid experiences in the workplace

With trans, gender-diverse, and gender-fluid people targeted for vilification in many countries and contexts, it is no surprise that the workplace can be a site where negative stereotypes and anti-trans rhetoric can play out, making trans and gender-diverse people feel unsafe and excluded. A four-member panel (three from different Centres of Excellence) discussed their lived experiences of being trans, non-binary, gender-fluid, and gender-diverse people in STEM and academia, and how systems and programs can provide support for inclusion or barriers that facilitate exclusion and an unsafe workspace. There was some emphasis on a need to examine intersectional policies and what effective support looks like. This requires a cultural shift and for everyone to model the behaviour we expect and want to see to enable those of us who are trans and gender-diverse to feel safe and progress in their careers.

Creating Safe Spaces: Lessons from a Year of Neurodivergent Leadership Coaching
Ani Møller is a transformation coach who helps neurodivergent people build sustainable professional lives. This extrapolates to the creation of a neuro-safe workspace, which Ani noted can be mostly free and simple to achieve. The value of embracing and supporting neurodiverse people is sustainable and effective work outcomes that includes high productivity.

Chris Perrella: My experience of burnout

Dr Chris Perrella, a postdoctoral researcher at the ARC Centre of Excellence: COMBS, told his personal story of burnout from a personal and academic perspective. He talked about how these mental health challenges affected his life and what steps he took to recover.
As Chris noted 43% of us will experience a form of mental illness in our lifetime.

Asking RUOK is not just for one day a year, and it is OK to seek professional help when you are not OK, Dr Perrella stressed. “We need to look after ourselves and each other,” says Dr Perrella.

Our reflections

The above is a taste of what was crammed into two full days of learning and networking. Below are the reflections on the conference of Jane, Jason and Gabby. All felt privileged to share in the experiences of the presenters and that there is an ongoing need to continue the dialogue.

“There was a good representation of COE Directors, Deputy Directors, Chief Investigators, students, ECRs, MCRs and professional members at the conference. Nobody can dispute the tremendous value that diversity adds to any research organisation, but we need to ensure there is the appropriate culture and support to capitalise on what that diversity enables. A key point made that drove it all home is the need to model the behaviour we want and expect, and I guess that is where it all starts,” says Jason.

“Attending the inSTEM conference reinforced the urgent need to accelerate actions around equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) to foster a more supportive and inclusive working environment. A critical starting point is encouraging broader participation in events like inSTEM, where centre members can come together to share experiences, discuss challenges, and engage in meaningful dialogue that drives progress in EDI,” says Jane.

Gabby says, “I’m lucky to have been able to join inSTEM remotely and watch many of the sessions. Professor Emma Lee was a particular highlight – her infectious laugh and positive energy, having come through such pain, was motivating and thought-provoking. I’m very grateful to the Centres of Excellence who came together to make inSTEM happen.”