Diverse teams do better science.
To maximise the effectiveness of our research team, and to improve diversity in Australian science, FLEET has added a new Diversity category to existing Women in FLEET fellowships, opening them up to a wider range of applicants from underrepresented groups in Australian STEM.
Diversity in FLEET Fellowships are open to individuals from any group that are under-represented in Australian STEM, or who have experienced uncommon hardship. Examples include, but are not limited to applicants who:
- Identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander
- Have a disability or who cares for a person with a disability
- Identify as LGBTIQA+
- Are from a regional / remote area
- Are from a disadvantaged or low socio-economic background
- Are from a refugee background
- Have experienced uncommon hardship, which could include, but are not limited to: experiences of domestic violence, health issues, etc….
The new Diversity category complements FLEET’s existing Women in FLEET Fellowships, which were introduced in 2019 to allow the Centre to begin increasing the percentage of women above the relatively-low average in fields such as physics, engineering and material science.
Both categories of Fellowship allow for improved flexibility in the location and type of position on offer. Rather than advertising highly-focused research roles with specific expertise criteria, which is standard in scientific recruiting and contributes to maintaining the status quo in gender balance and diversity.
Instead, Women in FLEET and Diversity Fellowships allow for applications from talented individuals whose research interests align with any research areas within FLEET, giving applicants the choice to nominate investigators they want to work with. The new Fellows may be experimental or theoretical, physicists, chemists or engineers, located at any of seven universities. The flexibility of offering whichever field suits the best applicants available allows the widest choice of applicants, ensuring FLEET will hire the best possible candidates.
The effectiveness of this broader search in allowing FLEET to find excellent researchers who may have been missed in previous, narrowly-targeted searches was confirmed by the remarkable increase in applications for previous WIF Fellowships. In the first round, FLEET received almost 70 applications – more women than the combined total from 14 previous, more-targeted searches.
Fellowships are available at Monash University, UNSW, RMIT University, Swinburne University of Technology, The Australian National University, The University of Queensland, or the University of Wollongong.
Applications close 26 Nov 2021
More information:
- Contact FLEET Equity and Diversity Chair Prof Jeff Davis jdavis@swin.edu.au
- See FLEET’s equity and diversity measures
- Read about the introduction of WIF Fellowships
