Science minister Ed Husic calls for overhaul of women in STEM programs

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic says government programs designed to get more women into tech jobs need to be overhauled.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic says programs to get more women into tech jobs need an overhaul. Picture: Martin Ollman

Federal Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic is urging an overhaul of government programs designed to put more women into science and technology jobs that will beef up the best ones and close down the others.

Mr Husic said there was a “multiplicity” of such programs across government and he had nearly a dozen different women in STEM programs in his own portfolio.

“Being able to get the best value for money, scaling up the programs that work, and potentially winding up the ones that aren’t performing as well is really important,” Mr Husic told The Australian.

Last year Mr Husic received a Women in STEM evaluation report from consultants ACIL Allen which reviewed nine government Women in STEM programs and faulted them for not addressing “cultural and systemic barriers” to women in some industries. The report also said none of the programs reached middle management “who are essential change agents in building inclusive environments necessary to increase diversity in STEM”.

“The initiatives generally treat STEM as a collective, without targeting the specific problems associated with each of the disciplines,” it said.

The report also found that the evidence base on “what works, for whom, and when” for the programs was relatively limited and lacked longitudinal data.

The ACIL Allen findings are picked up in a new report, the Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review released on Wednesday, which said that “best practice” needed to be embedded in the government’s women in STEM programs and changes needed to be made.

It also called on the government to set up a dedicated council to advise on how to increase diversity in the STEM workforce.

Mr Husic said that Australia couldn’t afford to have “artificial barriers” which prevented people from being part of the tech workforce. “We can’t keep relying on bringing people in from overseas to do this work,” he said.

He said the effort to get more women and people from other under-represented groups into STEM jobs would play a key role in helping reach the government’s target of 1.2 million tech-related jobs by 2030.

Mr Husic also said that business needed to lift its investment in R&D, which would create more tech jobs. Australia needed more of its many small businesses to grow into medium businesses that were large enough to invest in R&D, he said.

“It’ll create the demand for more R&D and that demand for R&D will obviously create demand for skilled workers.” he said.

Another report released on Wednesday, STEM Career Pathways, showed that women still face major barriers if they choose a career in science and tech.

Based on a major survey of nearly 3500 STEM workers, the report said that women faced major hurdles to success in the field including a $27,000 pay gap with men, job insecurity and barriers to their promotion if they took a career break.

The survey found that, in general, workers in STEM fields were hampered by lack of enough permanent jobs and the short term nature of research funding which forced STEM researchers to continually chase grants which some described as a brutal “hamster wheel” leading to intense pressure and high workloads.