The Disconnect at the Heart of Australia’s Women in Tech Strategy
The Australian Government says the biggest barriers facing women in STEM are systemic and cultural. Its own grant guidelines say the same. So why do the outcomes of its flagship funding program appear to prioritise individual interventions over changing organisations and systems?
Australia has spent years telling us the biggest barriers facing women in STEM are systemic and cultural.
Its own evidence says so.
Its own reviews say so.
Its own grant guidelines say so.
Yet when almost $10 million was allocated through a grant program explicitly established to fund “investment in gender equity initiatives that aim for lasting systemic change and eliminating barriers for women’s participation in STEM careers and entrepreneurship”, the outcomes tell a different story. The overwhelming majority of successful projects continue Australia’s long-standing pattern of investing in changing women rather than changing the systems they work within.
Somewhere between the policy intent and the funding decisions, the focus appears to have shifted.
The Women in STEM and Entrepreneurship (WISE) Round 5 guidelines are remarkably clear about what this funding was intended to achieve. They state that the program exists to support “investment in gender equity initiatives that aim for lasting systemic change and eliminating barriers for women’s participation in STEM education and careers, and entrepreneurship”. The published assessment criteria reinforced this. Applications were supposed to demonstrate “how your project will deliver long term systemic and cultural change beyond the project period”.
When public money is awarded against published criteria, the public has every right to ask whether the funding decisions reflect those criteria. That is not a criticism of the successful recipients. It is a legitimate question about whether public investment is aligned with public policy.
The Government’s own Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review reaches exactly the same conclusion.
“No single initiative or stakeholder can drive the systemic and cultural change needed.”
“A different, more strategic, approach is needed.”
“Cultural and systemic change does not happen overnight.”
The review calls on governments to commit to evidence-based programs capable of delivering long-term structural change, not simply more activity.
So here’s the obvious question:
If Australia’s own evidence says the biggest barriers are systemic, why are we still funding programs that overwhelmingly focus on changing women rather than changing systems?
Looking across the successful projects, a clear pattern emerges.
Four of the five successful projects primarily intervene at the level of the individual. They support girls and women through mentoring, education, capability building, transition points and participation across the STEM pipeline. The fifth focuses primarily on organisational leadership and workplace practices within the engineering sector.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of these approaches. They may well improve outcomes for the women and girls who participate.
But they also expose a much bigger question about how Australia approaches gender equity in technology.
There are three levels at which public money can be invested to create change.
We can invest in individuals by building their skills, confidence, networks and leadership capability.
We can invest in organisations by changing recruitment, promotion, leadership accountability, workplace culture and employment practices.
Or we can invest in systems by creating the infrastructure that shifts an entire sector, through common standards, benchmarking, procurement, policy reform and industry-wide accountability.
Every level matters. But they do not create the same scale or permanence of change.
Supporting one woman can change one career. Transforming one workplace can change hundreds. Changing the systems that shape an entire sector can change outcomes for generations.
Viewed through that lens, this funding round appears heavily weighted towards helping women navigate the existing system, with comparatively little investment in changing the system itself. That seems difficult to reconcile with a grant program established to invest in “lasting systemic change”.
The same question applies to entrepreneurship. Despite entrepreneurship being explicitly included in both the name and objectives of the program, the successful projects are overwhelmingly focused on STEM education and workforce participation. Where are the projects tackling the systemic barriers women face in building and scaling STEM businesses, accessing investment, or commercialising innovation?
This isn’t a hypothetical debate.
Australian employers are already demonstrating what investment in structural change can look like. Last week, the Tech Council of Australia and Project F released the inaugural T-EDI Standards Impact Report, Australia’s first common benchmark for gender equity in technology workplaces. Rather than measuring how many women attend a program or complete a course, it measures the systems organisations put in place to attract, retain and advance women, from leadership accountability and recruitment practices through to parental leave, career progression and workplace culture.
Supported by the Tech Council of Australia and the Future Skills Organisation, the report demonstrates that parts of Australia’s technology sector are already investing voluntarily in the structural reform needed to improve long-term outcomes. This funding round presented an opportunity for Government to help scale that work across the wider Australian technology ecosystem. Instead, the investment remained weighted towards supporting individuals within existing systems rather than accelerating the systemic change already underway.
Ironically, the Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review identifies exactly this gap. It warns that Australia’s current landscape is fragmented and calls for “a different, more strategic, approach”. It recommends creating coordinated programs that fill gaps, influence reform and support long-term structural change. It also recommends changing workplace practices, government grants and procurement processes to remove barriers across the STEM ecosystem.
Yet the outcomes of this funding round appear to reinforce the very imbalance the Review sought to correct.
This isn’t an argument that mentoring should stop.
Or that awareness isn’t important.
Or that universities shouldn’t play a role.
It’s an argument about proportionality.
If the overwhelming majority of funded solutions continue to intervene at the level of the individual, while comparatively little investment goes towards transforming organisational infrastructure or changing the systems those individuals enter, Australia should not be surprised if progress continues at the pace we’ve experienced for the last two plus decades.
Public funding is more than financial support.
It is one of the government's most powerful policy levers.
It signals what the government believes will create change.
It shapes markets.
It determines which ideas scale.
The outcomes of this funding round deserve more than congratulations. They deserve explanation.
Minister for Industry, Innovation & Science, Senator Hon Tim Ayres, Former Minister for Industry and Science, Hon Ed Husic MP and Minister for Women, Senator Hon Katy Gallagher have all championed Australia’s ambition to build a stronger STEM workforce and remove barriers to women’s participation. If Government’s own review concludes the barriers are systemic, and Government’s own grant guidelines prioritise lasting systemic change, how do the outcomes of this funding round reflect that ambition?
That isn’t a criticism of the successful recipients. Many will deliver meaningful impact. It is a question of public policy. When governments commission evidence, embed that evidence in their policy, and then appear to fund something different, they should expect to explain why.
Australia doesn’t need another review telling us where the barriers lie.
The evidence is already on the table.
What Australia needs now is the courage to invest accordingly.
Until our funding decisions consistently back the work of changing systems, we will continue investing in helping women navigate barriers that governments themselves have already acknowledged should no longer exist.
About the Author
Emma Jones is the Founder and CEO of Project F Australia, a social enterprise working to improve gender equity in the technology sector. She is the creator of the T-EDI Standards®, Australia’s first independent benchmark for gender equity in technology workplaces, developed in partnership with the Tech Council of Australia.