science discussion themes

The Homeward Bound program has four core development components: leadership development, strategic capability, visibility and science communication, and science collaboration.

​As part of the 'Science collaboration' component, throughout the year groups will be working together on science discussion themes and sharing outputs and resources through knowledge exchange. The goals of the knowledge exchange and discussion themes are to enable us to understand and collectively lead on current issues of global significance.

​​From an initial survey, our answers were collated to inform the general direction of the discussion themes and knowledge exchange groups, centred around what we believe are the threats to the future of biodiversity and human well-being. This is by no means an exhaustive list (there is an option for emerging themes that weren't as apparent) but the HB19 themes are:

• Gender leadership
• Climate change
• Education and awareness
• Environmental governance policy
• Pollution
• Sustainable practices
• Global Health
• Inequality

We have selected which theme we would most like to contribute to, and soon groups of 4-7 will be formed where we conduct research and work collectively (and in most cases virtually!) on these themes.

The type of outputs, direction, size is all determined by us as a group with a lot of flexibility. The group efforts will be presented on-board the ship in knowledge exchange sessions, so we each leave with a solid understanding of the topics discussed and shared.

In addition, another part of the science collaboration/communication component is to establish a global community of women in STEMM to collaborate towards impactful outcomes and shared goals. In order to facilitate this, each participant will present on their area of work or expertise during the Antarctic voyage through the ‘Symposium at Sea’ presentations.

The Science Program is coordinated by two of the HB Leadership team:

• Dr Justine Shaw - Research Fellow, Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science and The University of Queensland
• Dr Mary-Anne Lea - Senior Research Fellow and deputy Centre head of the Ecology and Biodiversity Centre, Institute for Marine & Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

​- Steph XO