Speaking of Science: International Women’s Day 2024 - Inspire Inclusion

Hosted by our General Manager and Inclusion Champion, Prue Torrance, we were joined by Ms Christine Gunson, Professor Yvette Roe, Dr Yee Lian Chew and Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin for a candid discussion on their experiences in the health and medical research sector.

Listen to our conversation with these trailblazers as they discuss systemic issues and barriers that still need addressing, the importance of mentorships and support networks for career success, the role women will play in shaping the future of medical research in Australia, and much more.

Video transcript

0:02
NHMRC General Manager, Prue Torrance: Welcome everyone. This is the second webinar in this Speaking of Science series, a new, uh, series by N-H-M-R-C. Today's, webinar is in celebration of International Women's Day held on International Women's Day Eve.

I would like to start by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the various lands around the country and seas, where we are all meeting from today. I am joining you from the land of the Ngunnawal people, paying respect to their elders past and present.

0:35 
As I said, the theme today is International Women's Day, and the theme of International Women's Day this year is inspire inclusion when we inspire others to understand and value women's inclusion, we forge a better world. And when women themselves are inspired to be included, there's a sense of belonging, relevance, and empowerment.

0:54 
2024 is also the UN women year of invest in Women Accelerate Progress, which is another very relevant theme for NHMRC as a research funder, and particularly as we maintain a focus on funding and promoting, diversity and inclusion, and including women's participation in Australia's health and medical research workforce.

1:15 
I'm joined on this panel today by four members of NHMRC's Research Committee, but before I introduce them all and ask them to introduce themselves, I did want to do a shout out to NHMRCs Inclusion Network. This event was their idea and then put it together for us with wonderful help of NHMRCs event team.

1:37 
But NHMRCs Inclusion Network is an employee initiated, initiative to support and promote and recognise diversity and inclusion within NHMRCs workforce. Today we're going to be talking more about the health and medical research workforce more broadly, but I do want to do that shout out to the inclusion network and in particular to the convener of the network, Kate Le May.

2:01 
Okay, so now it's time for me to introduce my distinguished panel that I'm joined with today. So I think we can see everyone on screen already. So just working across from my left here we have Christine Gunson, an expert in consumer issues and human resources.

2:19 
Christine has served on an NHMRCs research committee for six years now, I believe, and is also a member of our consumer and community advisory group for the same period.

2:31 
Uh, then we have Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin, Director of the Hunter Medical Research Institute and Chair of NHMRCs Women in Health Science Committee.

2:41 
Uh, then we have, Dr. Yee Lian Chew, Mary Overton, Senior Research Fellow at the Flinders Health and Medical Research Institute of Flinders University.

2:52 
And finally, Professor Yvette Roe, Professor in Indigenous Health and Co-director of the Molly Wardaguga Research Center at Charles Darwin University.

3:03 
So, welcome very much to the panel

3:06 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: Prue, you've got to introduce yourself.

3:08 
Prue Torrance: Oh, I'm told I have to introduce myself. So, hello, I'm Prue Torrance, I'm General Manager at National Health and Medical Research Council, and also inclusion champion at NHMRC. Thank you.

3:28 
Okay, so I'm going to ask each of our panellists in turn, to briefly introduce themselves and perhaps just a couple of words around what their, interest in today's topic is before we dive into some deeper questions.

And when we get into the questions, I have some to kick us off, but also please put your thinking hats on in the audience,  both in person here and online as we'll definitely have opportunities for you to pose your questions as well. So, Christine, can I ask you to start?

4:02 
Christine Gunson: Thanks, Prue, and thank you for having me on the panel today. So I guess my, uh, career has spanned about 40 years. I'm retired at the moment, and I can recommend that. But it's roughly about 20 years of that were in mining and manufacturing.

So I'm from Western Australia, and if you don't at least know somebody working in mining, you will be working in mining in Western Australia.

4:31 
The other half of that career was in higher education. The roles that I occupied right across both sectors were largely HR organisation development, and sort of more at the strategy level, probably, although involved in things like recruitment, operational processes early on in my career.

Eventually I ended up more in the strategy space, looking at workforce development, researcher workforce in the university of course, and in a contemporary university. You these days also get heavily involved in looking at diversity and inclusion, as part of that remit. So that gave me, a strong interest in that as well as research workforce.

5:12 
My involvement in consumer issues came as I transitioned to retirement, uh, and sort of got interested in things like workforce metrics measurement and how that affects people's behavior, but in the health setting. So that's probably enough about me. I have two adult children, so hi to them. I think they're online or one is at least, yeah.

5:38 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: My kids aren't, hopefully they're at school. Hopefully they're at school, although one school refusing at the moment.

5:57 
Hi everyone. My name's Frances. As Prue mentioned, I'm Director and CEO of the Hunter Medical Research Institute, but I've been involved in health and medical research in one way, ever since I can remember my dad, he, he still is, but he is retired now as a biologist in immunologist at the University of Newcastle.

6:15 
So I spent my life, growing up and running around the grounds of, of the University of Newcastle, and learning what it was like to be curious about the world and how research can actually play into that a lot.  

For about 25 odd years now, I've been a mental health researcher. I'm a psychologist by trade. And I fell into that career because I failed to get into medicine, which I thought was my passion, was what my passion was, and I'm really glad that I did fail. and I guess that's part of what I, I'm interested in sharing with people today is that, it's only now that I'm, you know, in these leadership positions, it's almost the opportunity to look back and connect all the dots and think about and reflect on, on how,  I happen to be sitting here today with this incredible panel of women asking some pretty, pretty probing questions.  

So thank you for having me, and I'm really looking forward to sharing with you, some really positive experiences that I've had, with mentors who have, have been both males and females, as a bit of an idea of how, how I think we can move forward. Thanks.

7:16 
Dr Yee Lian Chew: Hi, everyone.  I'm Lian and I'm a Neuroscientist at Flinders. And I usually go by, the fact that I do neuroscience on nematodes, which I call worms.

And I usually go by worm woman. And this is partly, partly because, no one can remember me otherwise. And I guess I can come back to that a little bit later.

7:37 
I'm like slightly un unremarkable in most ways. But, but, but I think, I think that partly that I am easily forgotten as, you know, part of being, a woman in science. And I have been a woman in science for obviously my entire career as a scientist. Those two things are not separable, but it also has become quite clear to me as my career progresses how critical that woman part is to the scientist part and how that impacts my every day.  

So I, I, I've been doing neuroscience for some time, but I also recently became a parent. And I have to definitely emphasise that I experienced sexism before I became a parent. But I guess the, the layers are different now. And I guess what, I’d like to also discuss with my eminent colleagues, and this panel panel,  is I guess what we can do to support women who may be feeling a little bit, invisible, because they are women scientists and, and, and I guess what we can do in many tangible ways to, to make that easier.

8:41 
So, so sitting on this panel, it's quite humbling. I mean, there's, there's, uh, three ladies who are quite clever and things like that.

8:50 
Professor Yvette Roe: Oh, what am I going to offer?  I'm, uh, Dr. Yvette Roe. I'm a Njikena Jawuru woman from the West Kimberley. I live on the sovereign lands of the Larrakia people in Garramilla in Darwin.

9:01 
And, I, I think, yeah, how did I get here? I was a child, number eight of 11 children, and I had an amazing mother, Aboriginal mother who said you could do anything. And I believed her because that's, you believe what your mum says. And I was always one of those curious kids about why do aboriginal kids have different classes to non-Aboriginal kids? Why do we live in a certain part of town and there's no white people around? Why is things so different growing up in Darwin?

9:33 
So I always had this very curious mind, and I'm also, so, you know, I went away and I, my first year at university, I went into sociology and I saw this sign and it said, uh, I, I read it as being Mark Weber. And I thought, this guy is so smart. Not only is he, you know, thinking about why societies works and a sociologist, but he is also invented a barbecue.

9:55 
That's how, so when I think about my education, I was pretty low on what I thought was intellectual. So I'm very much one of the beneficiaries of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who marched the streets in the sixties and seventies, that wanted access for Aboriginal and Torres Strait people into high schools and to universities and to high degrees.

10:15 
So when I think about my career, I very much stand on the shoulders of people who have walked, marched and protested to have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander representation in these institutions.

10:25 
And so, when I think about myself as a scientist or a, a person who, who's in this field, so I work with mothers and babies, and I, I work with, birthing on country to ensure that women have a whole range of choices about how they birth in a clinically and cultural safe way.

I'm very deliberate that my, I'm a disruptor of the system, that the system is actually quite oppressive, and we need new ideas. We need innovation, we need passion, and we need new methodologies to fix very complex problems. So I happily take the title as being a disruptor, but also I'm into transformation.

So for me, research is part of my activism and I don't apologise for that.

And I think representation about how you can do research in different fields in partnership with communities is really important. So yeah, I'm a research activist, and I sort of wear that with pride.

11:22 
Prue Torrance: Thank you everyone for those wonderful introductions. Now it's time to get into the nitty gritty. I'd like to start with a big scene setting question about why we're really here and ask our panel, what do you think are the systematic issues or barriers in medical research, that prevent women from being part of medical research, succeeding in medical research, our theme to remind, remind you all is inspire inclusion.

11:49 
We've been told we can do anything. What are the systematic issues or areas that may be stopping us from doing anything?

I will pick on people eventually, but for this question, who would like to start?

12:08 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: Maybe that's one of the first barriers is that, that, that reluctance or that hesitation to put ourselves forward in an environment that's unsure and uncertain, and we could be a bit fearful of, and that might not be, safe.

I, what’s been amazing to be part of, uh, with the Women in Health Science Committee here at NHMRC is, being able to have those conversations in that safe environment on that committee about what the experiences are of women, particularly, when they, we try and engage in health and medical, and medical research in that sector.

12:42 
And what's been equally as, as amazing and inspiring is that we've had support of this amazing institution, to do some pretty bold things, to address some of the structural issues in, in women leveraging and accessing important schemes, like the investigator grants scheme.

And so I, I don’t know that I'm going to address a systematic, uh, systemic issue, which is probably why I went first. But I think one of the big things for me personally is, is actually having access to those conversations that need to be had, to express vulnerabilities, to express fears, to, to seek support and, and mentorship around some of the, the feelings side, not the systemic and structural side, of some of the barriers to accessing a career in health and medicine that I didn't really have access to, in, in my early years.

13:32 
And so I've been very fortunate, not only in the committee, but also with mentoring, and really strong relationships to be able to have a conversation about an open conversation, invited to conversation about how do I be a mum and a researcher, how do I be successful at both?

13:48 
How do I not worry about work-life balance and, and talk about other ways to actually be successful inside and outside of the work that I love and I'm passionate about? How do I talk to my kids about why I'm away from them at NHMRC doing these sorts of things when all they want is for me to be at home.

14:06 
And what's so important and special about my job. You know, when my dad says to me, you're putting your job first.  Why are you doing that? Having access to people around me who I can have those conversations with.

14:16 
So for me, it's probably not surprisingly more of a, a feelings response to the barriers that exist before me and, and the other women that I speak to in health and medicine that's having access to those, safe spaces where we can actually entertain, and, and discuss some of those issues more broadly.

14:34 
And that's, I think, what stops a lot of us from applying, from putting ourselves forward, from getting involved and being the strong activists that we need to be for ourselves. But for each other.

14:50 
Christine Gunson: I think that I look at it a bit as a system, uh, that has legacy issues. And I look at it as how difficult it is to probably make change in those big complex systems. And what I mean by legacy issues, uh, that if you look historically at research in the medical and health space, and the, the sort of male, I suppose, domination in some ways going back many years, the accomplishment profiles of how research excellence is defined have largely come off the back of that kind of group of researchers.

15:32 
So as women move into the space and have been in there actually quite a long time, we are still not seeing a lot of shifts that support women. And why is that? I think it's to do with the fact that how we define excellent research is based on accomplishment, profiles of men who had different lives, they had wives, many of them. And they were able to put up a sort of template of what is excellent and what is success.

16:04 
As you've just heard, even Frances referred to women's accomplishment profiles look different. They are different. They happen in a different way. They're no less excellent.

So, the system is trying to understand how to recognise excellence when it doesn't look the way that it looked 25 years ago. And that system is grappling with those issues, and you'll hear more discussion in the future and now about things like quality and impact, different ways of measuring research excellence, ways that in fact, women can come forward and show their chops about, because it's not about having year on year on year of publications.

16:51 
It's about having really high-quality publications that move the whole conversation forward or the practice forward in a particular area.

So, I think those system issues, we are grappling with them.  And I'll say a bit more later about how I think women might help that, in, in the way they engage with the system.

But it's a journey we're on, and I think we are not where we need to be yet. But I think, uh, we are getting there and there's a lot of exciting work going on.

17:27 
Prue Torrance: I'd like to dig a little bit deeper into something that both of you have just raised. Uh, you mentioned, uh, women stepping forward and Frances, you made, kind of an offhand almost joke, comment about the hesitancy of being the first to speak or putting yourself forward.  And I wonder to what extent that also can come from a sense of having been invisible. And Lian you mentioned that sense of, of, of feeling invisible, of being remembered only in one way or needing to give yourself a label in order to be remembered.

17:58 
So I'd like to turn to you next and see if you wanted to tell us more about that experience, and how that serves as a barrier for you.

18:06 
Dr. Yee Lian Chew: Definitely, and I think, I think part of it is, is a lot about what people assume you bring to the table. And I think, I mean, it has happened multiple times before where, you know, I show up to an event and I'm the speaker, and then they're like, sorry, you're too early, the speaker isn't here yet, you know, just, just go home. That's me.  So, so I think, I think it’s, part, part of the reason that that invisibility happens is because it requires so much effort to be visible for, for, I would say many women.

18:40 
And it's like, I, I always call my husband who is a, a man who is white. I always call him my positive control to use an experimental term because when he, when he walks into a room, like he doesn't have to do anything. Like, he just, he just walks in.

18:53 
He doesn't have to open his mouth and people just assume this guy is smart and competent, and that, that doesn't really happen for me. And I just realised how much of an effort it takes when I do walk into a room to say, I am, I am also smart and competent. And so sometimes it's just easier to, to not do that because it, it just takes so much, much energy.

19:18 
So I think part of what would be great to support women scientists is to not let that happen.  I guess it's to, you know, talk about them when they're not in the room. Like, you know, raise their profiles and say, you know, oh, hey, have you met this person? They work in this field and maybe you can talk about stuff, if you do have the power and the privilege to do that.

19:41 
I think, I think a lot of it is that women expend a lot of energy on things that are probably not precisely to do with the key performance index measurables. And so in that sense, they also become invisible if you work in a, in a, oh, if, if you kind of commit a lot of time to service roles where you, it is just a line in your promotion application, perhaps that's not something that will help your career progress, as opposed to, I published five papers.

20:11 
So, so I think it's, it's about recognising, I see the different, different styles of achievement, but also to recognise that it does take more effort, I think for women to remain visible.

20:26 
Prue Torrance: We're going to hand over to, uh, Yvette now, who already touched on a number of kind of, I think, barriers that, that you've personally faced and perhaps you'd like to expand on.

20:37 
Professor Yvette Roe: To be, of a culture that's lasted 60, 70,000 years. You have to be scientist, you have to be engineers, you have to be climatologists, you have to be very clever to understand how you fit in the ecology of life.

20:53 
So science to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is not a new thing. The new thing is about how that knowledge is valued by institutions, let alone. And so when we know that institutions have been around, universities are ran around for 400 years, that's just a you, nothing compared to 70,000 years of knowledge.

21:12 
So how do we infiltrate these systems that A, don't value, that don’t, they only value certain type of knowledge. So it's not like we're outside and we don't have anything contribute. The barriers is how do we get into this system, that values our knowledge, that can see how it contributes to problem solving?

21:29 
That, you know, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, we've got a whole spectrum of things. You know, we could be as black as night and we can have blonde hair and blue eyes. So the stuff of the Phenotypical Aboriginal person has to be challenged. Representation really is important.

21:45 
So when we think of these, when I think about, my role in, in those barriers, what I see is a colonial system that's not designed for people like me. It's designed for people who have very traditional education systems that go through, you know, have, have good quality primary school, have good quality university, have got career advice, and not for people that don't have the best education, they're often not for mature age people that come into this late.

22:11 
So, and so for me, the stuff is how do I get into this system, dismantle it to ensure that there is inclusion, not only for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people , but people whose voice is not at the table. I think that's really important.

22:25 
So for me, I, I had a mentor, uh, 15 years ago who, he's passed now, Emeritus Professor Rick Speare, who he took me, gave the game, the game away, which talked about, you know, institutions are about white privileged men who sit around and make ideas.

22:43 
And so my job was how do I infiltrate the system, dismantle it. So we actually get different views, different methodologies on how we've contribute to fixing, very complex problems.

So when I talk about being a disruptive, it's also realising that our, these institutions is not inclusive, that it has barriers. And when I think about how did I get here, not only did I have a rally of people supporting me, I actually had non-indigenous allies that opened the door and they had to be non-indigenous allies.

23:14 
Because there were no Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people in a position to open the door. So when I think about what my responsibility, my job is to keep that door open, have pointy elbows, so there's more Aboriginal Torres Islander people coming through.

23:27 
So the question about which knowledge is valued, who can contribute to that space, how the system actually excludes certain people and being seen at those tables that we look very different, but also the richness of our knowledge system that can contribute explicitly on the voice of community.

23:46 
We know that research is often about the, the specialty of the researcher and not about the lived experience, but when we know that when people are part of the solution, drafting out ways, we actually get better outcomes, we get better responses.

24:00 
So what often the Aboriginal and Torres Strait community, is asking for is how do we be part of the solution rather than being defined as the problem ,that we need to be fixed. When we look at a colonial system that actually, when we look at data about mums and bubs, that's a result of the colonial system over 230 years.

24:19 
And we want to be part of that solution. So I think when we look at those structural barriers, where have they come from and how do we dismantle them?

24:28 
Prue Torrance: Thank you. So, I'd like to explore a little bit more, what does support look like, within the system? So what kind of, role do you think the support networks such as mentorship or other types of support networks can play in helping female research succeed in medical research or helping them disrupt the system? And any other types of support, uh, arrangements you've seen be successful, through your careers?

24:59 
Christine, can I ask you to start off on it.

25:04 
Christine Gunson: Thanks, Prue, I think mentorship is critical. In fact, I've got a little brief quote if you bear with me here from some of our papers in the meeting today, which was the Good Institutional Practice Guide, so it's worth quoting, but 72% of respondents to the 2019 NHMRC survey agreed that mentoring programs that address research quality and career development are among the most significant, these papers are never short, among the most significant intervention that an institution could do to improve research quality.

25:39 
So that's from the community of researchers itself. Now, for women in particular, if you are going to go an unconventional road and life might define that for you, then the role of mentors, uh, mentors is critical in terms of just giving you that support that you need to probably deal with and resolve some of the issues.

26:03 
And the only other thing I'd add to that is mentors can come in all shapes and sizes and for all sorts of reasons. So I think sometimes the mentorthat you need is just on a specific task or activity.

26:18 
So you actually just want to, not the sort of more general mentor, but someone who will actually help you understand, for example, the promotions process in your institution who can actually help you understand what sort of to spend your time on and where to focus.

26:33 
These are important advice and tips for people who've been there before you. Then there's the general kind of mentor that might be more around your whole, some of the lifestyle issues, because how does everything fit together? How do you deal with the competing priorities of outside work and inside work?

26:49 
So there's horses for courses in your mentors, and you can change them over time. And I think, and don't feel that because you've needed to access a mentor that that's a deficit. And then remember to step up and be one yourself because it's needed.

27:07 
Thank you.  Who else would like to contribute on the role of support networks and mentorship? Frances?  

27:16 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: Thank you. And I, I love that last point that you made, Christine, because one of the very first and early lessons that I learned from an incredible mentor and now friend to me, Marie Tesson, was that it's never too early to pay it forward.

27:29 
And so right from the moment I stepped into, into, into my career, I was encouraged to think about how else I could be contributing, and supporting the wonderful people beside me, above me, and coming through. And, and that can be in so many ways, it can be, you know, with those conversations, it can be by opening doors, keeping doors open. And, and for me it's actually taken the form of, of, of really putting voice to all the fears and insecurities and worries that I have, but understanding that through those mentoring relationships, you can have all of those fears and insecurities and you can still do the work.

28:08 
And that, you know, whether we're men, women, other, other genders out there, we all have those same insecurities.  And, and we can still do the, do the work so that, that, that strength and, and career progression is not contingent on not having all of those worries and fears.

28:25 
It's having them and it's working with them and it's using them, and, and doing it anyway. And so that's the content of the mentoring sessions that I’ve, really benefited from. And also, again, having that perspective that it's, it's my responsibility and duty to make sure that I’m passing that on as soon as I can.

28:44 
And again, one of the early lessons I learned was that, you know, if I'm going along to a meeting or to a, a big, uh, event or something like that, there's always an opportunity for me to bring someone along with me. It doesn't always just have to be me who goes and gets those opportunities.

28:58 
And I think that's something that I've seen, particularly the men, that I've worked with and, and, and worked underneath do very well. So I'll always bring someone along. Just got to make sure that, that we are one of those people as well.

29:13 
Dr. Yee Lian Chew: I think, sorry, with regards to, support. I think it’s, you know, sponsors and mentors like, you know, the sponsors or the people who keep the door open, hold the door open, talk about you when you're not around, you know, trying to find opportunities to bring you to places.

29:27 
And mentors who I, I agree are very valuable with, I think that mentors also have to have understanding of your lived experience. And sometimes if, there are not that many people who can be a mentor, who really do understand your lived experience because they, you know, they're quite different from you. I think that that can sometimes be a challenge.

29:47 
So I think with, with regards to support, one of the biggest things is that as in in research and in health and medical research, there's this kind of idea that you kind of, you can't really lose momentum in in your work. You have to kind of keep, keep publishing, keep doing the, you know, the most cutting edge research to keep going.

30:03 
And the reality is no one's life is without some kind of disruption or, and, and there's no point, there's no one's life at some point needs to, their work needs to take a slightly second priority. And I think, you know, for for many women, this includes like, you know, caring responsibilities for children or for, relatives or for health reasons.

30:24 
And I think, you know, the current sector, kind of the framing of a career disruption is very much how do you, how did you overcome it? Like what did you do despite this disruption? I still manage to attend six conferences and publish 10 papers. So it's kind of like you have to overcome that, that like, you know, a disruption and, and sometimes there's no, there's no positive about it. You just did nothing besides birth a whole human.

30:50 
But, but, I, I think in, in a way, like what, what could be done to support that is to kind of, you know, in, in, besides, besides, you know, helping people to reduce the amount of disruption to their work is also to kind of change the culture and change the conversation and say that even though this person could not, you know, work all the time because they had the child, you know, that experience makes them a better scientist for this reason.

31:18 
Or like, you know, to say that you do not have to overcome your career disruption in order to still be a successful researcher or a a researcher who contributes something, even though you achieve nothing in that period in terms your productivity. So I think it's, I think that is something that needs to change.  But it does require a lot of movement, rather than just kind of talking about it.

31:48 
Professor Yvette Roe: I, I agree a hundred percent about the role of mentors. Uh, but I think from, from my perspective, there's a, there's a couple of things. One is, a mentor to help you navigate the system that, you know, no one might in, in, in your, you know, network has ever navigated. So you need someone who's got a roadmap to say, you don't go through these rabbit holes and you are not spending time there. So you need that person to, to sort of guide you through it.

32:12 
And then you need a cultural mentor, because universities and research institutions can be really unsafe environments. And so you, you are in this stuff where you want to be able to, and, and you've got to be really strategic.

32:25 
So when I think about those institutional, because I can be on a whole range of things and then I've got to think, where's the best place? Because I might be the only Aboriginal person at that meeting, but where's the best place that I can have the greatest impact? Because everybody might want me on the committee to what's on NAIDOC and you know, what's on the cover of this and bits and pieces. And I'm thinking, yeah, that, that's important, but where's my bang for buck if that I'm the only person?

32:48 
And the other thing is, you know, the cultural responsibility that Aboriginal and Torres Islander people have in research is a huge responsibility. And with that becomes accountability. The idea that, uh, you know, a community member might come up to me and say, oh, you're doing that birthing on country stuff and start growling.

33:06 
And I'm, I'm sitting there because I'm, I'm country to them. I'm relation to them. And what we do, you know, the thing that I think Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people bring to the table, we, we, we say things like, we've got skin in the game. We're talking about our families. These are our communities and we do what we do because we love our communities and want them to thrive. It's not a nine to five job. So there's a stuff about understanding the system and navigating it.

33:30 
And it can be a hostile environment, but also it can be so welcoming if you've got the right ally and accomplice. So when I talk about accomplice, I don't want you standing next to me while the Aboriginal flag goes up. I want you to be busting down those doors in front of me. I want you to be able to say, okay, this is the cheat sheet. We don't, you know, things like that that I'm thinking,

33:49 
I need you to take some of that colonial load of this structure off my shoulders. Because I can't be, have cultural responsibility and institutional responsibility. I need you to walk with me, so that there's those, those stuff.

34:02 
And let alone being an Aboriginal woman, you know, it, it's that stuff of, oh, you can't be that smart because you're an Aboriginal woman that lives in a remote area and this and that, and you didn't go to one of these big universities. I'm a PhD doctor. So the idea that I'm not a clinician or a specialist, all of a sudden I go down in what my intellect is.

34:21 
One of the things that I know that, you know, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who work in this field who have been leaders like, uh, Professor Sandra Eades, Professor Ian Anderson, uh, Professor Misty Jenkins, Professor Yvonne Cadette James, who have been at that front of the, the Vanguard. You know, this is a very recent history, you know, the last 25 years.

34:41 
So I'm very much, you know, we, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people coming into these institutions. It's very young. But we, here again, we are here to transform a system because we know research makes a huge difference if we are part of the solution, not being the object of research.

34:58 
So mentorship can, can come in. And I think the idea of having really good people around you that can laugh, that can cry with you, that can, you know, sit there and thinking, you know, when you're thinking, I can't do this anymore, we'll hold that space, that eight second space to let you vent and say, okay, let's go again. And I think those, those mentors are both, you know, women.

35:19 
The thing that I've learnt recently is having a younger mentor with technology changing so quickly, and I'm getting older very quickly, having younger mentors that guide me is really important.

35:31 
And we, and as, as I'm going into a different phase of eldership, I need young people to keep me accountable and I'm learning from them. So often we just, we're looking up, we need to look down and sideways and things like that. Because young people have got amazing ideas. And so I want to be able to create opportunities for being them in those spaces ,where those ideas can be heard, but paying it forward. Yeah, like I said, I stand on the shoulders of people. I want to make sure I've got strong shoulders that people will stand on mine.

36:00 
Prue Torrance: Thank you. We've heard a lot about what, both individual women and their mentors can kind of do to support themselves and those around them. There's a huge, amount of taking responsibility for others that we've, we've heard come through in the panel as well.

36:15 
What I'd like to ask now is what would you like to see change, or what steps do you think need to, to happen to encourage and support women in the health and medical research workforce?

36:27 
But to approach this question from not what you individually could do, but what would you like to see change in the system to really provide that, that level of, of support, and encouragement? Frances, would you like to start?

36:44 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: No, I would not. Because I actually don't know what, I don't know the answer to that question, if I'm to be frank.

Because I, when I think about what's needed, it's, it's the, the, this principle of inclusion applies no matter who you are, where you are, what you've done and and, and what you want to do. And, and it would actually be a, a, a place where it, it actually doesn't matter that I'm a female scientist or a female leader. It's just that I'm a scientist or a, a leader or a member of a, a group that values the skills and the contribution that I can bring.

37:19 
And it's really interesting being a, a leader now of a medical research institute. I just thought I was a researcher and a clinician and then I'd be a leader, but I'm actually more often referred to and brought into situations because I'm a female leader or a woman leader, than I am, for a leader.

37:37 
So it's really this, it's just this interesting space. What do we do to get to that, that, that, that area, that, that, that, outcome of inclusion and inclusivity.

37:49 
I, I don't know if we just start acting as if, I don't actually know what the steps are. Maybe it is lots of conversations like this, and, and bringing our networks and our people and our tribes and our groups together, to, to practice including rather than excluding.

And I know that's probably a very psychologist thing to say, but that's the first thing that comes to mind with that very difficult question that you made me answer first.

38:15 
Christine Gunson: Thanks. It is a $60,000 question, and so I'd like to just flip it a little bit, because I had the privilege of sitting in a committee that's grappled with over the last six years how to adjust the dial through system change. And when we are not sure that we've got it completely right yet.

38:41 
So what I'd like to flip it to is, say that if you are a female researcher trying to build your career in medical health science, do a few things on your own behalf to help us and help yourself. And some of those things are, for example, make sure you understand, you know, things like Dora, which is the south, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). You know, a group of people trying to define assessment and research differently to take account of the different accomplishment profiles of women.

39:17 
Make sure that you understand how to talk about your research in a quality narrative and that you understand how to talk about relative to opportunity. Concepts that actually are so critically central and important to talking about women's accomplishments and their careers and their lives.

Because for you to come forward for a research grant and not be able to articulate the key conversations around how your research is valuable in a quality sense or the impact of it, then what assessors will do is default to what they've always done. The old hacks, let's just look at the number of publications.

40:14 
So what you can do is you've got to take some leadership here. And if you think, the concept is wrong, if you think relative to opportunity really is not a, is clumsy or clunky and doesn't really work, then get engaged in trying to help us understand what does work. So I think that's what I'd like to say. It's, it's very much a partnership here, you all with the system. You've got to be proactive about driving the change with us.

40:46 
Prue Torrance: Thank you. I will open to questions soon, but I would like to hear from Yvette and Lian, first on, what would you like to see change?

40:55 
Professor Yvette Roe: Uh, I think I, I touched on it before. We at, research, uh, committee, we are really looking at those structural barriers. And, and I think, you know, when you're looking for fundamental change, you, you can change the, the curtains, you can paint the walls, you can put down new carpet, but it's still going to be a broken down old house.

41:13 
So when you actually look at the foundations about what makes things strong, that is inclusive, you look at the structural things, that genuinely value, uh, what people, people with the diversity bring to the table and how, again, how we value that kind of knowledge.

41:28 
So, addressing the structural inequities is really important because the current system has resulted in these inequities. So being, being truth telling about what's where, where that source comes from is really important. Because people have ideas about how to change that. But if we are just going to be, you know, putting up new curtains and new carpet, we only, we're wasting our time. We're wasting our expertise. We need to make fundamental change. And I, and I think that's where RC is really thinking forward.

41:55 
And I, I, I think one of the things is, we've got to be courageous. You know, you, I call it blue, blue sky thinking. If we're only going to look at the little stuff, we are only going to make really incremental change. If we are going to be courageous as a scientific community, let's be bold, let's take some big steps.

42:17 
You know, the whole stuff about, well, who's in and who's out. I think everybody's going to be in, and if they're not, we need to bring them into the tent. So when I think about, you know, those structural changes, if, if I'm living in a very remote community, if I'm a transgender aboriginal woman, that's a single mother that's on social, you know, so social security, has got limited housing. When I talk about inclusion, I'm thinking about how do I get that lady at the table to hear what she's got to say to say to, to address some of these complex issues. Because I don't want to talk about her, I want to hear her voice. That's really, that's really important. Thank you.

42:54 
Dr. Yee Lian Chew: Oh gosh, want to see change? Where do I start?  So I, I agree that definitely there needs to be bold, bold moves, and courageous moves. And I think in a sense there also has to be courage in the sense that some of these things will not work straight away. And, it is, it is that courage to accept a little bit of, you know, some things will work and some things will not.

43:17 
But to, if you have good process and evaluation and everything, those things can be fixed and you can learn lessons and move on.

I think with regards to what can be changed, is building flexibility into things.  And that can be difficult in some, in, in some parts of our, our professional lives. But I, I think we, we can try to do that. Like, for example, like it means even, even small things like, you know, when people would have like important meetings about a particular theme. And it would always happen on the day that I wasn't working, you know, like to try and say, you know, maybe we cannot always have the meeting on Tuesday. And, and yes, it does, it does affect more people then, you know, they all have to now have the meeting on Thursday. Sorry. But I, I think it's, it is things, it's kind of things like that that, you know, to accept that there will be flexible work around you to accept that those people are still going to be valuable things.

44:10 
And to accept that people need to bring their whole selves to the table and that that whole self is, is valuable in itself.

44:21 
Prue Torrance: So I'd like to invite questions from the audience, in the room or online. If you're online, please raise your hand and if possible turn the camera on so we can see that you're waiting to ask a question. Or anyone in the room who would like to ask our excellent panel a question. And we do have a question. I will ask your to introduce yourselves first please.

44:48 
Audience: Hi everyone.  I'm Sam Faulkner. I'm Director of Indigenous Advice at N-H-M-R-C and a question for all of the panel. Firstly, thank you all for your wonderful insights today.  But the question is just around, based on your career and your lived experience, what advice would you give, uh, to a younger, younger you?

45:14 
Professor Yvette Roe: There's no direct route. There's not A-B-C-D, it could be the most adventurous path you take. Uh, be courageous, make sure you, the people around you also have got your interest at heart.  Be open to growing, be open to making mistakes. Get some really good mentors that, uh, that are really clear where you want to go. Give yourself time to really articulate what you want to do.

45:40 
Have lots of fun. Have lots of fun and what that looks like, and, and meet amazing people and be really focused that you are making career on your values. Because when it gets really hard, it'll be those values that you're thinking, am I doing the right thing? Because it does get hard, it gets very lonely, it gets very isolated. It can be quite traumatic. But yeah, be open to ideas.  But get some good people around you that, that, that are going to be your safety net, but also push you out of that nest and, and be there to catch you at the same time.

46:18 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: Wish I met you earlier. My two big pieces of advice to my advice to myself, and I'm trying to give this to my daughters when they'll listen, is trust your intuition. And I think I, I can get very distracted by other voices, other things, big shiny balls, those sorts of things. But I've, my intuitions never really steered, steered me wrong. And the second thing is to ask why not, not why.

46:53 
Christine Gunson: I think probably just a couple of things. One is when you're feeling your most scared and overwhelmed, you're probably about to do your best, best work.

So there's that. But a more sensible voice has always said to me, if I had my time again, I think you've got, I sort of give myself this front load. If you, if you know you probably would like to have a family, and I didn't know that I did want to mm-hmm, front load as much as you can before that.

47:31 
Because it gets snarly once they, the kids come in terms of just balancing and you get very tired. So I just say front load and get as many runs on the board as you can in the beginning, and then family.

And then you start planning how to merge it all together. But if you don't have the runs on the board to start with, you just feel like you're slipping further, further behind.

47:54 
Dr. Yee Lian Chew: So, I definitely really resonate with this idea of the values, and being your, being your compass.  Because I think, I think especially, when you perhaps you don't have as much confidence in your abilities to do stuff, because you constantly have to remind people that you are not incompetent. I think you, you do kind of question your ability to kind of make all these, big decisions of whether to trust your gut and that sort of thing.

48:21 
And, so, so finding your values is when you're starting out and using those values to kind of be your compass. I think I, I wish I had done that earlier. Whereas now I kind of feel more confident. Because it, you know, even, even if, if I make a decision and it follows my values, I know that I'm not doing the wrong thing by myself.

48:44 
Prue Torrance: Do we have any more questions?

48:56 
Audience: Steve Wesselingh here, CEO of NHMRC. My question is, uh, about travel. So often when I mentor people, I, I talk about travel and the benefits that I've had from travel, both going to diverse range of countries, Papua New Guinea, United States, the UK, uh, Malaysia, and so on. But I know travel's difficult in a lot of contexts, but it is an important part of the scientific process, both in terms of conferences, but also collaboration and, but also experiences. So I just wondered how you see travel in the context of the issues we're talking about today.

49:37 
Dr. Yee Lian Chew: I can just address it briefly. So I think I've seen this in two ways because, so I have a, let's see, a non-preferred passport. I'm, I'm Malaysian. And so sometimes for to visit most countries I have to get a visa. Uh, sometimes the cost of that visa is very expensive. And sometimes it's just, you know, it takes too long. So, you know, if I want to go to a conference in two weeks, that's just impossible.

49:57 
So, so travel has not always been accessible to me, and especially now, when I have a, a young child, a young baby, you know, it's not just the logistics of should I travel, but like sometimes I just don't want to, and so I think, when it comes to travel and, and equity, I think, you know, the one thing that the, the pandemic told us is that, and I know this is very polarising, but online meetings can work. I think that it just has, there has to be significant effort into making it work.  And we have spent, you know, decades optimising the in-person meetings and the, you know, that, that sort of thing, like making it something that is, that people enjoy and, and want to come back to.

50:40 
But I think we are just starting on that journey to make the online space, the online meetings, something that people feel close to each other actually, you know, get value out of.  And, but it has changed things in terms of, of equity in so many ways. Like there's so many people who can't travel, for a range of reasons. And having that online space accessible to them, even in a hybrid environment means that their voices are brought to the table. So, so I do think that, I know a lot of people don't like the online space, and I do think it's partly because they've been to online meetings that just weren't very good. But we can, we can make it better. And I think it's worth that investment.

51:23 
Christine Gunson: Thanks for the question, Steve. Just interestingly, uh, the university that I worked for before I retired, as part of their Athena Swan program, developed an initiative where they offered, under application, it wasn't just a, you know, everybody was not eligible, but you could apply, uh, as a female researcher or academic, to be going to a conference or to some sort of set of meetings or research project, apply for the cost of taking support with you with, for, for a child or so basically you could travel if you, particularly if you had a a very young child, you could do that and, and actually get some help to go, uh, with you to help with that.

52:09 
And so that was taken up with great enthusiasm by women, uh, trying to attend, uh, overseas conferences and they thought it was fabulous.

52:24 
Professor Yvette Roe: I, I guess it's that stuff of, I, it takes me about four and a half hours to travel down from Darwin. It can take me two hours to get to Bali, uh, and, and things like that.

52:37 
So I think the issue is about how we are connecting to a community of people that will expand our ideas and things like that. So I think online is really important. And one of the, the things around the Molly Center is that we talk about weaving a mat, and when we weave our mat together, we, we connect to each other's story and our story becomes more solid and things like that.

52:58 
So I think traveling is very subjective. So, uh, for me to drive from Darwin to Alice Springs is a 12 and a half hour thing, uh, drive. And I can see a dozen communities and each community's quite unique. I could, you know, I've, I've been able to go to, uh, Canada and being mentored by one of my idols. And I, it was like a real girly moment that the idea she wanted to spend time with me. And that was real key learnings and opportunities. So, I think you've got to be really purposeful about why you're going there.

53:27 
And because it's, it's a long time away from family and our families grow up very quick. So I think when you're traveling, think about how that, how you are weaving your mat together and what you are contributing and what you're taking away.  Because all those relationships are really important.

So I, I think, yeah, it is the diversity of people, it's the knowledge exchange. It's about how that contributes to your longer term vision. And I think there's lots of opportunities to, if again, travel doesn't have to be overseas. It could be within Australia, it could be to Timor and things like that.

And but also talking to people who have travelled I think is really exciting because they'll inspire you, you know, people that have gone to Hopkins.

54:14 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: And I guess just a, a little bit on that, the be willing just to trial and fail. So I've experimented with my, on my poor family over the years and I've got the sweet spot of the number of days that it's, it's possible to be away not only to help what I'm doing on the ground, but also the impact on my family when I get back home.

54:34 
So it is, for me, it's like between seven and 10 days away, including travel time. And I can't go any more than that really. And I'll prioritise things like if it's the first meeting or the first thing that I'm doing, I'll try to do that in person because that can then establish the relationship and the ways of working that can carry you through to a successful online experience. But again, I've only worked that out through trial and error.

And so I guess bringing the same kind of curiosity and research, mindset to these sorts of things, as you might to your work.

55:11 
Prue Torrance: I believe we have someone waiting to ask a question online, so please do.

55:17 
Audience: Hi. It's Alison Petit here from Mater Research Institute in Brisbane.  I'd like to thank the panel for some really great reflections. It's been, uh, really valuable to me, and say hi to Yvette who used to spend some time at Mater Research with us. It's great to see you doing so fabulously well.

I wanted to ask whether the panel thinks that we need to reflect on whether our, the health and medical research sector leadership model is actually exacerbating some of the challenges.

55:50 
Because my observations, conversations, and personal experience demonstrate that any time we take on some sort of significant leadership role, it's an add-on to stuff that we already do versus being a replacement of things.

And so leaders of institutes, et cetera, are continuing to be expected to be outstanding scientists in their own field and producing the same amount of, research outcomes that they were producing prior to taking on a significant leadership role, which as an institute leader could be really only,  uh, uh, covered as a 0.2 FTE contribution. And I would argue that 0.2 is not based on my own experience director of biomedical research, that is not enough time to actually be a proper leader, to sponsor people to support their development, and that we really don't actually get any opportunity to continue our professional development of leaders, which we receive very little training in.

So I'm wondering whether we need to review our leadership models because also our leaders remain conflicted then because they're already, they're trying to be successful in their own scientific career. And that always creates conflicts with supporting our others in their organisations or more broadly.

So I'm wondering whether we need to, explore and, scrutinise our sector leadership models.

57:18 
Prue Torrance: There's lots of nodding here, so I think you might have answered your own question, but I will ask the panel to reflect as well. Christine.

57:24 
Thanks Prue. And thanks for the question, Alison. I think it's really a critical issue and I think, the sector is going to have to examine carefully, not just, it's not just the leadership model, it's the academic career structure actually.

57:44 
And, and whether you can, have a stream of promotion through academic levels that is about leadership versus getting there through the classic sort of research teaching mix. And then you add leadership on as something else, again, and some leadership roles, you know, sit alongside, as you say, without even being a separate discreet role in their own, in their own right.

58:07 
So I think there's a lot for the sector to look at there. Just as a person coming from mining and manufacturing into the sector, about halfway through my career, I was shocked because there was kind of this urban myth around academe being some kind of, you know, sort of recreational farm environment or I don't know. But I got there, and I was blown away by how hard everyone was working out of hours, you know, I mean people going, oh, mining, but you know, there’s the, the financial rewards were there for any extra hours.

I saw people putting in massive hours in higher ed, largely unfunded.

58:49 
Professor Frances Kay-Lambkin: That's right. Getting up, you know, five in the morning to do work so that you can be there for the school run and then go into, into leadership. I think that's very true. I think the short answer to Alison's question is yes, we absolutely do. What is that model and, and what's the, the outcome of that? I'm not sure, but I think it has to be more of a team-based approach.  Because there is the work to be done. We all want to, I think we all are part of the, the solution.

And so certainly my rise to where I'm at the moment has only been possible because of the team that I've had with me. And that's inside and outside, of the, of work. And maybe that's about having some shared, shared KPIs or shared outcomes and, and being, I guess rewarded for those collaborative shared outcomes along the way to encourage the teams to go and do it, do it together.

But I think the answer's yes, and I'm not sure what the sweet spot is,

59:51 
Professor Yvette Roe: It's like trying to do everything and still be as sharp as you can. And I think part of this, part of that role is actually accepting, there's things that you can't do and negotiating that space of, yeah, look, you want me to do this, this, and this. I've only got x amount of time, I've only got this amount of capacity. And often, you know, it goes back to Frances's first point. Often we get almost embarrassed to say, I can't do that, or I need to step up and things like that. So we have to, we do have to find our voice, but we’ve all got to be backing each other up.

1:00:20 
Mm-Hmm. I think that's, that's really important. And it, it's that thing of, again, how, how much do we value leadership if it's only, you know, 30% of your time. You either, it's once the stuff we, you either going to sit on the pan, and you got to get off the pan. You can't be one or the other.

And I think people don't value what that means. But also we're in an environment where we, we are getting more constricted financially, so organisations have to reconsider their model. You know, we we're in this sort of, but we also want so much more from our public institutions.

1:00:54 
So I think there's a part of that, what the community expects from us, what we expect from our career, what our universities or institutions are wanting from us.

And saying we can keep pushing ourselves, but that's not the sustainable model, and something's got to give.

1:01:08 
And I guess, organisations, you know, we have to be very clear what we're prepared to trade off or, you know, how much of our staff, our, our women are going to say, this is not the career for me and what, what the loss is to that organisation.

1:01:24 
Prue Torrance: Thank you. I think we have heard many inspiring words from our panel today.

I was going to ask more or to close with some inspiring comments, but we have heard so many already.

1:01:34 
I, I did have a, a, a closing reflection I would like, like to make on the panel.

I've heard, a few times you speak with a great deal of humility. And I just wanted to remind our panel, you are here because you are exceptional, exceptional scientists, exceptional people, exceptional in your area of expertise and not just female leaders.

1:01:59 
We are at time, so we're going close the webinar. Thank you very much for coming and I would like you to join me in thanking our exceptional panel.