Engineering a more balanced workforce

The University of Queensland has been recognised by Engineers Australia for its work in boosting female participation in engineering courses. The industry group has announced UQ as a winner in its 2015 Gender Diversity Awards, in the category of Most Encouraging Student or Non-Profit Group in Gender Diversity.

UQ’s Women in Engineering program communications coordinator Stephanie Crawley said the university’s industry-funded program aimed to increase undergraduate female enrolment to 30% by 2023.

“UQ increased its female intake in engineering from about 18.5% in 2012 to 22.1% in 2015.

“In 2014, it hit 24.3%, which was the highest number and percentage of females entering engineering at UQ in the university’s history.

Crawley said the support of companies including Rio Tinto, API and APPEA as program partners had been critical to the program’s success.

“Industry not only wants change but is willing to invest in change,” she said.

“This is a key message of the program. We are all working together to enrich the engineering industry by providing a better balance of outstanding engineers.

“We are dedicated to improving gender equality in the engineering workforce in particular, but also to educating young girls about a career in engineering, and how exciting it can really be.”

Crawley said UQ was keen to speak with organisations interested in joining the program as partners.

“I hope this award can be used as a springboard for communicating the importance of diversity and to demonstrate how university programs such as UQ’s Women in Engineering are more successful with industry being involved,” she said.

Meanwhile, research is also underway on how to improve workforce diversity in engineering.

UQ Chemical Engineering researcher Kate O’Brien, with collaborators at Wageningen University and Leiden University in the Netherlands, has demonstrated that much like the poverty trap, low gender diversity in the workplace can be a “lock-in” situation.

The team has published a paper, How to Break the Cycle of Low Workforce Diversity: A Model for Change, in the international science journal PLOS One.