The University of the Sunshine Coast (UniSC) has been recognised with five Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) Cygnet Awards for its work in progressing gender equity, diversity and inclusion (GEDI).

These awards reflect a sustained effort to remove barriers to opportunity by redesigning the systems that shape academic careers; from recruitment and promotion through to parental leave and the STEM pipeline.

“Each of these initiatives started with someone asking a hard question about why a system wasn’t working for everyone, exploring the barriers thoroughly to design solutions, test their benefit and embedding that change to make it business as usual,” said Dr Janin Bredehoeft, CEO of SAGE.

“Together, the awarded initiatives point to an institution that has moved from ad hoc, manager-dependent support toward more consistent, transparent and centrally organised structures.”

“Each of the Cygnet groups undertook an extensive consultation across the university of academic and professional staff using a variety of methods to make engagement as easy as possible. The results have ensured practical and actionable outcomes” Professor Ross Young, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Innovation).

Rebuilding processes from the ground up

Several UniSC reforms began with a simple observation: existing systems weren’t giving staff what they needed to plan and progress their careers. The Performance Planning and Review process, for instance, was widely seen as transactional rather than developmental, and only 52% of women and 36% of men academics felt it included meaningful discussion about their career development.

UniSC worked with 200 staff to co-designe a new Performance and Development Cycle that resulted in 84% of staff reporting that they knew what they needed to do to be successful in their roles.

A similar rethink shaped academic promotion. Applications are assessed in relation to each staff member’s workload allocation across teaching, research and engagement, with greater transparency in expectations and outcomes. Promotion panels are gender-balanced, and there is increased visibility of promotion outcomes across the University.

Outcomes also reflect successful institutional efforts to make promotion more accessible to staff with non-linear or flexible career trajectories. Part-time applicants achieved a 76% success rate and 64% for full-time colleagues over the 2018-2025 period. Similarly, 93% of staff who attended central promotion workshops before applying went on to be promoted.

“Career development now feels like a shared responsibility, not something left to chance,” commented a female UniSC staff member said.

Structural changes are essential in addressing GEDI to ensure the system rather than passionate individuals deliver fairness and progress is built upon as leadership and individual roles change.

Making support systemic, not situational

The reforms have normalised family and carer commitments with the equity policy built into everyday decision-making related to parental leave and flexible work.

Parental leave costs, once absorbed unevenly by individual schools, were centralised in 2022, reducing both workload pressure on colleagues and the potential for bias in recruitment decisions.

Since gender-neutral language was introduced into parental leave policy, uptake by men has grown from zero during the SAGE Athena Swan Bronze assessment period to 14% of extended parental leave applications between 2018 and 2024.

The Professional Development Program which supports academics to progress their careers underwent a comparable redesign, removing mandatory travel, expanding eligibility to dependent adults, and permitting caregiving expenses. This dramatically changed women’s participation with 78% of participants being women in 2018-2025 compared to 36% between 2015-2017.

Widening the pipeline into STEM

In the School of Science, Technology and Engineering, targeted recruitment, leadership representation and structured promotion support led to 32% of women holding fixed-term academic roles in 2024, up from 21% in 2017.

“I appreciate the collegial environment, the openness to new initiatives, and the growing recognition of the importance of equity, diversity and inclusion,” commented an Associate Professor and Chair, Women in STEM Committee. “There is genuine interest in positive change.”

Alongside this, student outreach programs including MindSET-do and Headstart STEM have worked to strengthen women’s confidence and sense of belonging earlier in the pipeline, with undergraduate enrolments rising from 671 to 841 women between 2018 and 2024.

UniSC has been candid that these are gains still in progress. Women remain underrepresented among academic job applicants overall, particularly at Levels D (Associate Professor) and E (Professor).

What’s next for the University

Future work flagged across the awards includes scaling school-based promotion approaches for greater consistency, broadening networks for carers and staff on parental leave, and embedding intersectional practice into recruitment, including alignment with disability and Indigenous employment frameworks.

Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Helen Bartlett, said receiving the awards demonstrated UniSC’s commitment to advancing gender equity.

“This is a significant milestone for UniSC,” Professor Bartlett said.

“It reflects the progress we’ve made towards creating an equitable, diverse and inclusive environment for study and work. I’m proud of actions we’ve taken to embed systems and practices in specific areas including academic promotion, career development and STEM pathways. We’re always striving to do more, and we remain dedicated to taking further steps to enhance our culture.”

About the SAGE Cygnet Award

SAGE Cygnet Awards celebrate organisations that have demonstrated progress in making their workplaces more equitable by removing or reducing a barrier to inclusion. They must be able to show that these changes have had a real impact on staff and/or students.   

You can read all about the University of the Sunshine Coast’s actions, outcomes, and impact in the full Cygnet Award Applications, or the progress and impact summaries all published here. 

About SAGE

Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) is Australia’s leading advocate and accrediting body driving systemic change in gender equity, diversity and inclusion across tertiary education and STEMM research sectors.

SAGE delivers Australia’s only evidence-based, internationally recognised, tailored gender equity, diversity and inclusion program for the tertiary education and STEMM research sectors. It supports, advises and guides member institutions to build their staffs’ skills and deliver meaningful and sustained action that moves the dial on gender equity, diversity and inclusion.