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This week the Australian Space Summit is celebrating some of our nation’s strengths and achievements in the space sector. But it’s taking place in the shadow of significant cuts to space technology investment announced in last week’s federal budget.
Space technologies play a critical role in responding to many national priorities, such as climate and disaster resilience, connecting regional Australians, contributing to regional security and driving economic growth. However, the sector suffers from a branding problem – most people think of rockets and astronauts rather than the satellites we boast of around the world.
This leads to a misunderstanding of the importance of space technologies in the government. It also makes it difficult to recruit talented people into the field.
So how can we find enough people with the necessary skills to grow this critical technology sector?
Why diversity and inclusion are beneficial
The answer is to place a new priority on talent recruitment and promote diversity and inclusion in the space sector.
The space sector needs workers from diverse backgrounds and educational backgrounds, but is struggling to attract a diverse talent pool. This is due to the misconception that space only offers STEM-related jobs, as well as the white and male makeup of the space industry, government and academia.
This affects not only the human resources pipeline but also the sector’s funding due to a limited view of what solutions the space sector can provide to society’s biggest challenges.
This is an urgent public relations issue for the space sector. It needs to rethink how it markets itself to the public in order to better recruit for myriad positions in fields such as space law, policy, technology management, social anthropology and archaeology, business, the arts, communications, and more.
The sector must also prioritize diversity. Currently, only one in five workers in the space industry are women. Although much of our land-based space infrastructure is on Indigenous lands, First Nations Australians also continue to be sidelined.
We want to be more inclusive of perspectives from people of different genders, sexual orientations, and ethnic and linguistic backgrounds, as well as people with disabilities. Research shows that diverse and inclusive teams lead to greater trust, democracy and creativity, less “groupthink,” more positive work environments, and greater employee retention.
Additionally, greater diversity makes it easier to tell the story of why space technologies matter to society. This helps with government funding and the industry punching above its weight globally.
A few more amazing Australian women in space! #Bota4All #IAC2022 Team Australia 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/9TLhIouXMC
— Dr. Cassandra Steer (@CassandraSteer) September 20, 2022
National conference on diversity in space
Last month, we brought together more than 200 experts from the space industry, government, academia and community to discuss these issues at the first-ever National Conference on Gender Equality and Diversity in Space.
Participants agreed that diversity is an unmissable opportunity for the space sector. By recruiting from a diverse talent pool and ensuring that diverse perspectives are incorporated into technology design and solutions, many of the industry’s challenges can be addressed.
These are our top tips:
1) Improving workplace conditions and creating informal networks
Policy changes can help with diversity recruitment, such as combating weak organizational cultures, providing fair leave policies, and improving existing promotion and hiring policies.
But informal networks are also important. There are networks of women in space in countries as diverse as the US and New Zealand, which have proven critical to developing a more diverse workforce. A new Women in Space network will soon launch in Australia.
2) Don’t just pay lip service to diversity
Diversity should be placed at the center of programs and policies in the space sector and in federal and state/territorial governments. The space sector needs to do a better job of explaining the importance of its work to government agencies.
3) Establishing diversity procurement policies
This includes lower targets to support women-owned and First Nations-owned enterprises in the space sector and to give preference to space businesses that demonstrate improvements in the diversity of their workforce.
Australia is in danger of falling behind
In the year In 2025, Australia will host the International Astronomy Conference, the largest annual conference for the space industry in the world. This is an opportunity to demonstrate our leadership in promoting a values-based, diverse, equitable and sustainable space sector.
However, unless concrete action is taken now, Australia’s space sector risks falling further behind our international peers.
We are proud to speak with Dr. Michael Munoz Fernandez, Executive Director of our Mars Sample Return Program. @NASAA commitment to diversity in STEM fields is demonstrated by a @White House Policy brief. Learn more about NASA’s Equity Action Plan: https://t.co/7BDFMY4b6j pic.twitter.com/y9YSasaLF1
— Bill Nelson (@SenBillNelson) May 8, 2023
The Australian Space Agency is currently working with a number of organisations, including the Global Women’s Leadership Institute, the ANU Institute for Space and the Australian Center for Space Governance, to develop our own policy on diversity in the space sector.
This is a step in the right direction, especially with the recent budget. But the industry needs to improve the transparency of information on diversity as well as concrete commitments and actions.
To this end, we are conducting research to improve diversity in the space sector.
We are inviting anyone in government, industry and academic roles to take part in a survey to describe their experiences of inclusion, diversity, equality and employment. This resource contributes to Australia’s statement on diversity and inclusion in the space sector.
This article is reprinted from the discussion under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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