Program components
Invest in Me, Invest in My science
Component 1: Support for early-career women scientists
A program consisting of three online webinars; a one-day workshop; a grant pitch opportunity to progress a science idea on the path towards collaboration and commercialisation; and a mentorship initiative – matching participants with industry mentors.
Virtual Career Coaching Webinars
Together, these three (3) complimentary webinars are designed to provide the necessary resources and activities to help women scientists to identify and articulate the value of theirscience and attract investment for their innovations/innovative projects.
The webinars focus on three big-picture ideas:
Webinar 1 – Activate your thinking
Participants are introduced to the concept of a growth mindset then guided to develop their own for both their science and their careers. Participants develop an understanding of the importance of feedback and practising how to ask for and respond to feedback. Participants learn how to identify successful learning strategies and apply these strategies to crafting and delivering an effective science pitch. Finally, participants complete an action plan for fostering a growth mindset.
Webinar 2 – Define your value
Participants take part in a range of activities to understand and articulate the value of themselves and their science. They identify their biggest areas for development and evaluate future roles and career paths. Participants reflect on their strengths and their biggest areas for development; gathered feedback from trusted colleagues, friends and mentors; examined the keys to help evaluate future roles and career paths; and identified trends in tasks they loved and tasks they loathed to better understand the types of roles that aligned well with their strengths and interests. Participants refine their resumes to strengthen their capacity to attract collaboration and investment opportunities. Key actions for strengthening skills included volunteering for a professional organisation or scientific society in the relevant field, participating in grant writing with a supervisor, gaining experience as a supervisor or mentor, and taking practical action to overcome a self-perceived weakness. Finally focusing on building profiles and strengthening skills, participants are guided to identify their “best next steps” and make an action plan.
Webinar 3 – Explore your opportunities
Participants focus on networking and transferring skills. The webinar examines issues of trustworthiness, using a trust equation that identified the key components that can build or detract from trustworthiness. Credibility, reliability and intimacy (how safe and secure a person feels sharing in a relationship) are developed as factors that can build trust, while self-orientation was identified as a factor that can detract from trust. Participants look at actions they can undertake to (1) build trust within their networks and (2) build trust with external collaborators. As a final task, participants create their strategy to encourage potential stakeholders to invest in them and their science.
One day pitch & strategy workshop
This workshop provides an opportunity for webinar participants to perfect how they pitch their research and ideas to potential collaborators and investors. It prepares women in science for focused feedback to strengthen their pitches. Assisting to develop a strategy for attracting investment in them and their science, the value they bring to a collaboration (e.g. key qualities, key skills) and the type of investment they need to support their work (in terms of both money and people).
Throughout the workshop, participants will plan specific activities to implement their investment strategy and explore investment opportunities for their science. Participants leave fully prepared with a clear pathway to apply for grant money and pitch their innovative idea.
Investment grant to guide innovation
Providing an opportunity to apply for a grant (recommend $5K-10K) to assist participants to explore investment and collaboration opportunities for their science. Participants submit a one-page document introducing themselves and their science with a 200-word pitch describing the research idea for which they are seeking investment opportunities.
These grants could be used to cover the costs of travelling to meet with possible investors, for example, or to convert a pitch into a prospectus. Mentors are identified to match with projects to guide their efforts.
Component 2: Support for Indigenous women scientists
Background
A program designed and led by Indigenous women for Indigenous women designed though a dual knowledge innovation framework. The program provides a culturally inclusive pathway to draw on multiple knowledge systems that recognise Indigenous knowledge as equally “valid and credible” whilst being “flexible enough to recognise and embrace the diversity of Indigenous culture” (Woodroffe, Lowell, Lawurrpa Maypilama & Pollard, 2020, p. 2). The workshops are held on the country identified by the participants as relevant to their STEM entrepreneurial activity and knowledge holders. The meetings are designed to identify the strengths of the participants incorporating the ways science entrepreneurial knowledge is governed from a Western and Indigenous perspective and enable women to establish a framework to identify the key elements of a STEM entrepreneurial strategy, communicate the strategy to ensure endorsement and gain external support.
Three team workshops
A series of three workshops are led by Indigenous women scientists to explore the opportunities to catalyse their science and experience to commercialise their work and achieve entrepreneurial outcomes. The workshops are co-designed with participants and held in sites identified by the participants as places of significance for the women involved, the work to be developed and identify the external agencies that could be relevant. The overarching themes are outlined on page 11.
