New hub supports organisational change for gender equality in leadership

The Women’s Leadership Knowledge Hub provides access to training and research opportunities, and government and industry collaborations.

A PLuS Alliance program, Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways, has created the Women’s Leadership Knowledge Hub to support gender leadership goals and equality by 2030. The online resource includes a database of training and research opportunities, and government and industry collaborations covering 10 areas of interest and six themes.

Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways was launched by PLuS Alliance – a collaboration between UNSW Sydney, Arizona State University (ASU) and King’s College London – in October 2020. The program delivers recommendations, resources and advocacy to transform the pathways to leadership for all genders.

UNSW Sydney Deputy Vice-Chancellor Equity and Diversity and Inclusion, Professor Eileen Baldry AO, co-leads the Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways program, which identified the need for the hub.

“To ensure organisations step up and support real change, it was imperative that our project lead a curated information resource – a knowledge hub – providing access to tools to educate and facilitate gender equality. We are very proud of this resource,” Professor Baldry said.

“Globally, women are still in the minority among CEOs, board and executive members of major companies, professors and political leaders. The Knowledge Hub enables users to see what’s available at other organisations to improve this situation – starting with our three universities [the PLuS Alliance] – stewarding collaboration, organisational development and continuous improvement.”

The Knowledge Hub’s 10 areas of interest are: corporate, engineering, entrepreneurship and innovation, higher education, media and communications, medicine and life sciences, politics and policy, science, technology and the arts. Its themes are: increasing the pipeline, increasing visibility, public and organisational commitment to gender equity, recruitment and retention, tracking data and setting goals, and training and mentoring.

“It’s ensuring that the profile of executive leadership across 10 major sectors is inclusive and sustainable,” said Dr Sarah Jones, Director Strategic Partnerships, Arizona State University.

“The Knowledge Hub enables PluS Alliance university staff and students to find out what support, programs and initiatives are at their university. It also provides a resource to look at best practices at other universities so we can leverage the different experience of our partners.

"This is just the first step. We plan to expand the Women’s Leadership Knowledge Hub to showcase more and more of the fantastic programs that already exist in other organisations across the globe,” she said.

The Knowledge Hub is the first key initiative from the Transforming Women’s Leadership Pathways team, ahead of the announcement of its 2022 program. It includes working groups engaging with government, universities and industries to progress the 10 evidence-based action plans identified by the team to close the leadership gender gap. 

“We’re really excited to be launching the Knowledge Hub, a key component of our strategic plan. It’s a timely and usable online resource for organisations to view and be inspired by examples of women’s leadership programs, initiatives and research,” Professor Claire Sharpe, King’s College London, said.

“It’s about encouraging and supporting organisations to broaden the pathways for women into leadership and we’re here to open up the opportunities.”