Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) is pleased to announce that The University of Western Australia (UWA) has been awarded its second and third SAGE Cygnet Awards.
These recognise sustained institutional progress on the visibility of women and women in leadership, two barriers identified through the university’s Athena Swan Bronze in 2017.
Together, these two Cygnets tell a connected story. In 2015, women comprised just 40% of academic staff at UWA, less than 30% of research-focused media releases profiled women’s research, and there had been very few women on the University Executive over the past decade.
Today, that picture looks markedly different and UWA’s journey from problem to impact offers a useful case study for the sector.
“UWA’s work in these cygnets reflects a connected effort in increasing the visibility of women’s expertise, improving representation in leadership, and driving the policy and workload changes needed to sustain this change into the future,” SAGE CEO, Dr Janin Bredehoeft commented on this achievement.
“That’s exactly the kind of evidence-led approach the Cygnet Awards are designed to recognise.”
From under-represented to gender-equitable exposure
During the Bronze assessment, UWA found its women researchers were consistently less likely to be profiled in the media, particularly in STEMM, where only 23% of related media releases featured women.
In response, Corporate Communications partnered with the Gender Equity Working Group to take a proactive approach, sourcing newsworthy women’s research directly through Faculties and Schools rather than waiting to be approached.
A standout initiative was the Research on the Record podcast, which profiled 16 women researchers across disciplines from astrophysics to marine biology between 2023 and 2024, drawing over 2,400 downloads and mainstream media pickup on outlets including Nine News and ABC Perth.
The podcast series, while impactful, was time-limited and has not continued past its funding period. As the University notes, this is a reminder of the importance of mainstreaming gender equity work rather than individual initiatives.
A university-wide Panel Pledge, introduced in 2020, has since grown from 21 to 358 signatories, publicly committing staff to advocate for gender-equitable representation at conferences and events.
The impact of being seen
The results speak for themselves: media releases featuring women rose from 20% in 2011 to over 54% by 2024 and 2025.
One mid-career academic reflected on what that visibility has meant for her career: “I can now indicate in grant and award applications that I’ve featured on podcasts, here’s a link to a radio interview that I’ve done… I think it helps to demonstrate leadership in my field.”
Senior academic, Professor Archa Fox, described how growing media confidence opened doors well beyond communications: “As my media exposure increased, more leadership opportunities came my way. I was invited to co-chair a roundtable discussion led by the Australian Academy of Science on RNA technology… My growing confidence dealing with media really helped.”
UWA has also flagged intersectional data as a clear area for further work, including for women from diverse backgrounds, and LGBTIQA+ staff, who report facing distinct and compounding barriers to visibility.
Closing the leadership gap
UWA’s third Cygnet tackles a related but distinct barrier: the underrepresentation of women in senior leadership, on key decision-making bodies, and in competitive research funding.
In 2017, women were underrepresented on the Senate, Academic Council and Academic Board (holding only around a third of seats in the latter case), and few women had been on the University Executive in recent years.
UWA’s response spanned performance management, workload, funding pipelines, and workplace culture.
A reformed performance appraisal system now embeds “Achievement Relative to Opportunity,” supported by a new MyProgress app and updated manager training. The Academic Workload Framework was overhauled to properly recognise service and service leadership roles, work disproportionately carried out by women, ensuring it’s allocated, valued and visible.
New leadership programs, including Elevate, Lead and Horizon, have deliberately skewed enrolment toward women, with 69% of 2026 places going to women participants.
Systemic reforms leading to real-world change
Targeted sponsorship, rather than waiting for self-nomination, lifted UWA women’s representation on the ARC College of Experts from 13% of UWA participants in 2020 to 60% in 2026. Progress has also been made for women receiving Future Fellowships and, in 2023 and 2025, two UWA women were awarded Laureate Fellowships.
By early 2026, UWA’s Executive was at gender parity, over half of Heads of School were women, and the University had appointed its first woman Chancellor, Dr Diane Smith-Gander AO. The gender pay gap has also narrowed, from 10.4% in 2023-24 to 8.9% in 2024-25.
As one senior academic put it, the shift in decision-making bodies has changed more than just numbers: “Increased representation of women on Senate, Academic Board and related forums at UWA has certainly strengthened the quality of discussion and scrutiny around major decisions, and provided pathways to leadership for competent and experienced women.”
But UWA is equally clear-eyed that representation is not the same as cultural change. The same senior academic, who has served across UWA’s key governance bodies, observed: “Representation alone doesn’t always solve structural dynamics and women who reach these roles on merit still have to navigate institutional cultures shaped by longstanding masculine norms.”
Further planned actions
UWA has committed to local, School-level gender equity plans and enhanced data infrastructure as part of its ongoing Athena Swan action plan. Continued attention will also be applied to the discipline-level gender imbalances that persist beneath university-wide averages, particularly in STEMM.
UWA’s Athena Swan Executive Sponsor, Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Tim Colmer, explains: “We can see from staff feedback and data analysis that we’ve made considerable progress in creating an inclusive work environment, increasing the visibility of women and increasing the number of women in leadership roles.
“We will now be focusing our attention on improving data collection, ensuring gender equity initiatives are embedded fully across the entire University and identifying further areas for improvement.”
Professor Fiona McGaughey, Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic Advancement and Diversity and UWA’s Athena Swan Academic Lead, is also looking ahead. “As we progress towards Silver, we are building on strong foundations and will focus on intersectionality to continue to remove barriers to gender equity, diversity and inclusion,” she said.
SAGE congratulates UWA and all staff involved in delivering these outcomes and looks forward to the University’s continued progress in gender equity, diversity and inclusion.
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.
This builds on The University of Western Australia’s previous Cygnet Award on gender imbalance within the engineering faculty.
You can read all about UWA’s actions, outcomes, and impact in the full Cygnet Award Application, or read an overview in the Progress and Impact Summary 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 capabilities and deliver meaningful and sustained action that moves the dial on gender equity, diversity and inclusion.
