International Women’s Day 2026: Balance the scales

International Women’s Day (8 March 2026) is a time to recognise the women whose leadership, expertise and commitment to others are helping to balance the scales and create fairer systems, broader participation and stronger futures for all.

This year, UN Women Australia’s theme Balance the scales highlights the need to address structural inequality and accelerate progress toward gender equity. In research, this means recognising the transformative potential of research excellence when it is combined with ambassadorial leadership that redistributes opportunity and supports others to succeed through mentorship.

These principles sit at the heart of the Australian Research Council’s named Australian Laureate Fellowships. In 2025, 2 outstanding researchers were awarded these prestigious Fellowships: Professor Felicity Meakins from The University of Queensland, recipient of the Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship, and Professor Anya Reading from the University of Tasmania, recipient of the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship.

Across disciplines spanning the humanities, social sciences, science and technology fields, their work demonstrates how leadership that champions others helps to rebalance Australia’s research system – strengthening both excellence and equity.

Named Laureate Fellowships: leadership that shifts systems

The Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellowship and the Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship are awarded to highly ranked female Australian Laureate Fellows. The Fellowships provide additional funding and recognition for an ambassadorial role to promote women in research and mentor early career researchers, particularly women. 

Named after two pioneering Australian scholars – Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a distinguished historian and public intellectual, and Georgina Sweet, a trailblazing scientist and advocate for women in STEM – these Fellowships recognise that leadership in research is not only about discovery, but about creating pathways for others to follow. 

By investing in mentorship, visibility and inclusive leadership, the Fellowships help address longstanding gender imbalances in research participation and progression.

Professor Felicity Meakins – Giving language a future, and knowledge back to Country

As the 2025 Kathleen Fitzpatrick Australian Laureate Fellow, Professor Felicity Meakins is internationally recognised for her pioneering work in Indigenous languages, linguistic diversity and language contact in northern Australia. Her research explores how language encodes ecological, cultural and social knowledge, and how this knowledge can inform broader scientific and societal understanding. 

For more than 20 years, Professor Meakins has worked in close partnership with First Nations communities, co-compiling dictionaries, grammars and ethnobiologies that support language maintenance and renewal. By giving her expertise, time and commitment to community-led research, she has helped ensure that linguistic and ecological knowledge is preserved, shared and valued across generations. 

Professor Meakins’ Laureate project, Amplifying Indigenous Ecological Knowledge in Western Science with Language, will explore the critical role Indigenous languages play in accessing and understanding Indigenous knowledge of Country. The project aims to support the preservation of Indigenous languages, many of which are at risk of being lost, and to strengthen pathways for Indigenous scholars in linguistics. One of the aims of the research is to transform our understanding of the Australian continent through genuine engagement with Indigenous languages. 

Alongside her research leadership, Professor Meakins’ Fellowship supports her ambassadorial role in mentoring early-career researchers, particularly women, and championing inclusive research practices across the humanities and social sciences. 

Professor Anya Reading – New insights from beneath Antarctic ice

Awarded the 2025 Georgina Sweet Australian Laureate Fellowship, Professor Anya Reading is a global leader in geophysics and Antarctic science. Based at the University of Tasmania, her work uses advanced computational and geophysical techniques to reveal the hidden structure of the Earth including the vast, ice-covered landscapes of Antarctica. 

Professor Reading has led more than 30 years of observational seismology and interdisciplinary field programs in some of the world’s most remote and challenging environments. Her research delivers critical insights into climate resilience, Earth systems and environmental change — knowledge that benefits both Australia and the global community.

Professor Reading’s Laureate Fellowship, The expedited discovery of subsurface Antarctica, aims to transform knowledge of subsurface Antarctica - hidden landscapes, geothermal heat and subglacial water flows - which shapes how ice sheets will respond to a changing climate and new temperature extremes. 

Through her Named Laureate Fellowship, Professor Reading also undertakes a significant leadership and mentoring role, supporting early- and mid-career researchers and promoting pathways for women in science and technology.

 Her work demonstrates that investing in others — through collaboration, mentorship and shared infrastructure — strengthens discovery and accelerates impact. 

Leadership that lasts

Across disciplines, institutions and research environments, Professors Meakins and Reading show how generosity in research leadership creates lasting returns. By giving knowledge back to communities, mentoring the next generation, and acting as ambassadors for women in research, they help build a more inclusive, resilient and forward-looking research system.

This International Women’s Day, the ARC celebrates their achievements and the enduring legacy of the Kathleen Fitzpatrick and Georgina Sweet Fellowships as powerful examples of how leadership can help balance the scales and strengthen Australia’s research system for the future.