What are the barriers preventing gender equity in the workplace? And what can we do to overcome them and create lasting solutions?

At the beginning of this year, I started exploring these questions in the scientific literature and have been writing about my findings as I go along, with thanks to Digital Science for their support.

The key themes that have emerged have surprised me.

I discovered that we have a lot of research about the problem – how women are disadvantaged in the workplace and in life, and the nature and scale of that disadvantage – but very little research on solutions. It’s easy to quantify a problem; it’s much harder to test a solution.

I also found that the arguments we’ve been using to encourage companies to take gender equity seriously are no longer fit for purpose. The last few years have seen a wholesale withdrawal from gender equity and related work by a wide variety of companies and organisations, especially within the tech sector. The high number of job seekers means that employers no longer need to impress future employees with promises that they support women and other under-served communities.

So how do we make a new argument in favour of gender equity? How do we better understand the interventions open to us and which ones might create long-term change?

That’s what I am addressing in my workplace gender equity report. I’ve made good progress on it, but I need a bit of help getting it over the finish line.

With Digital Science’s support I have done a vast amount of background reading, which is an essential but time-consuming task, and I am very grateful to them for enabling that.

I had always hoped to get another sponsor in, but that has proven challenging so I’m now crowdfunding the support I need to get this report finished.

What I need to do next is:

• Develop a questionnaire to explore people's experiences of gender equity interventions in the workplace

• Share and analyse results

• Explore some data sources that have been shared with me

• Finalise the report

My goal is £4,500, which would allow me to dedicate the majority of my time through October, November and December to finishing up this report, with the aim of having it typeset and ready to publish in early in 2027.

Any companies who would like to contribute to that total can contact me directly and we can talk about a sponsorship package.

Thank you all for your support!!