WOMEN IN PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURE: MAPPING FEMALE RESEARCH VOICES IN AUSTRALIA SURVEY
Friday, 15 October 2021
This survey responds to international calls for gender-inclusive policies, practices, and partnerships so that all self-identified women and girls can fully participate in shaping and occupying the built environment (CAP, 2018).
Background:
Internationally, the Commonwealth Women In Planning Network’s manifesto sets out a detailed call to action to address gender inequalities in the built environment (CAP, 2018). The manifesto builds on recognition across all professions to recognize inequality and the importance of diversity through “providing an intersectional, gender-based lens through which we can examine the built environment, advance the Sustainable Development Goals, and support women working in the planning profession - to ensure inclusiveness and equality - as advocated for by the 2030 Agenda, the New Urban Agenda, and the Paris Agreement” (CAP, 2018:3). The CAP manifesto recognizes the role of academic researchers, recommending the development of platforms to disseminate planning education curricula and research (CAP, 2018:8). The importance of knowledge exchange between researchers and planners in professional practice is vital as the exchange can help set research agendas, inform research data, embed research into practice, and validate research findings to ensure effective planning policy development for real-world planning issues (Hurley et al., 2016).
The Planning Institute of Australia (PIA) accredits planning degrees and links academia to practice. PIA acknowledges the current absence of a formal policy position for gender equity in the planning profession (PIA, 2021). PIA’s recent discussion paper and annual survey of members set out to identify gender equity issues considered to be priorities within the planning profession in Australia (PIA, 2021). Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (AACA) accredits architecture degrees and have recognized that while gender balance in teaching architecture has improved female professors make up a low percentage (AACA, 2018). Alongside CAP, in Architecture, diversity advocacy group Parlour actively works to substantially raise the profile and participation of women across practice and academia (Matthewson, 2018). Recognising female research voices is important as the education of planners and architects is intrinsically linked to research and the construction of new knowledge to shape equitable cities and inform inclusive practice.
Project aims:
An objective of this research is to advance on-going work by CAP, PIA, Parlour and AACA to enable gender equity in built environment professional practice, extending the focus to university research. This research will capture and explore themes and topics being examined by female planning and architecture voices in academic research at Australian universities to enable greater research to practice the exchange of female voices across Australia.
What is required?
Your support is needed to gather data to capture female researchers’ voices in planning and architecture. Specifically, we are asking for support to gather author’s names, their peer-reviewed research outputs, and affiliated PIA/AACA accredited Australian institutions, for articles published in the last 5 years, for inclusion in our analysis. To participate, please complete a short survey via the link: https://utsau.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_d6YQ0NRjEkR04UC
We intend to undertake bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed articles by researchers who self-identify as women. We will map research themes to better understand the inputs of the female voice in the built environment through the disciplines of planning and architecture.
Project team
Professor Jua Cilliers, UTS (researcher, planning, Chair of CAP Network) jua.cilliers@UTS.edu.au
Dr Gill Armstrong, UTS (researcher, architecture) gillian.armstrong@UTS.edu.au