Three symposia are to be held during the course of the project: September 2025, January 2026 and spring/summer 2026.
AGENDA: Online Symposium 1
Towards gender equality: transforming leadership and career development in higher education
Tuesday 23 September and Wednesday 24 September 2025 (All times below BST)
Day 1
10.00-10.15: Welcome: introduction to project and how the conference will run
Directors of each Institute: Rosinka Chaudhuri, Grace Diabah, Lesley McAra
10.15- 11.45: Expert panel: My leadership journey in higher education with Q&A
Chair: Omolabake Fakunle
Panel: Jyotsna Jalan, Fiona MacKay, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo
11.45 – 12.00: Reflections on emergent themes, introducing focus group session and looking forward to day 2
Lesley McAra
12:00-12:15: Break
12.15-14:00: Focus groups and feedback in plenary Sign up for the focus groups here: https://edinburgh.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cTFPSkU1dnQilHU (separate sign-up required)
Focus groups led by members of the project team: Samantha Likonde, Omolabake Fakunle, Debdatta Chowdhury; Lesley McAra, Jyotsna Jalan
Chair to lead the plenary feedback: Lesley McAra
Day 2
10.00-10.05: Introduction to leadership development for Early Career Researchers
Chair: Lesley McAra
10.05 – 10.45: Why leadership matters: models of leadership
Guest speaker: Susan Murphy (Professor of Leadership Development, Edinburgh)
10.45 – 13.00 (with break between 11.45 and 12 noon): Training session for early career researchers - managing difficult conversations and navigating challenging cultures
Bespoke session: led by 64 Million Artists
13.00-13.15: Break
13..15 – 14.15: Academic careers in Ghana, India and UK: job applications, surviving interviews, negotiating contracts
Panel session: Asha Singh, Lesley McAra, Grace Diabah
14.15 – 14.30: Key themes from the day, looking forward to second symposium
Led by Lesley McAra
The recording of Why leadership matters: models of leadership by Susan Murphy (Professor of Leadership Development, Edinburgh) is available here.
Coaching for success: transforming women's leadership and career development in higher education
Thursday 29 January 2026, 11:30-13:30 GMT
This two-hour creative and reflective online session invites early career researchers to explore coaching, mentoring, and leadership in academic life. Participants will reflect on how they give and receive support, develop listening and questioning skills, and consider how coaching and mentoring approaches can foster inclusive, equitable, and effective leadership. The session emphasises confidence, curiosity, and practical application, leaving participants with tools and perspectives to support their own career development and that of others.
The session is being run by 64MillionArtists as part of a wider project exploring barriers and facilitators of women’s leadership and career development in higher education, industry and politics across the global south and north. This Royal Society of Edinburgh funded project is being undertaken by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh; the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana; and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata.
Please note this is an interactive learning session, not a webinar, so you will need to be in a place where you can fully engage and contribute verbally. Ideally we would like all participants to have cameras on unless your access needs prevent you from doing so.
The training session is online-only and free to attend. All welcome!
Towards gender equality: transforming leadership and career development in industry and politics
Monday 23 February 2026, 09:00-11:30 GMT
Global data shows that women make up on average only 27% of members of national parliaments, 13% of top managers in corporations, and 19% of the presidents of the top 200 Universities, with a recent UNESCO report (2021) concluding that inequalities run deep and glass ceilings remain high. Concerns are growing too about the future of diversity, equality and inclusion programmes across many countries, which may further impede progress.
This symposium explores the barriers and facilitators of women’s leadership and career development across the global south and north, with a particular focus on industry and politics. Entrepreneurs and politicians from India, Ghana and Scotland will share their experiences of career development, explore structural and cultural barriers to advancement and consider what steps can be taken now to promote positive change.
Speakers at the symposium include: Rita Aku-Shika Diabah (Founder and CEO of Yesli Ice, Ghana); Dr Antoinette Tsiboe-Darko (Deputy General Secretary of New Patriotic Party and Executive Director of Danquah Institute, Ghana), Dr Naeema Yaqoob Sajid (Founder and CEO of Diversity+, Scotland), Dr Debdatta Chowdhury (CSSS, India) and Baroness Margaret Curran (Scottish Labour Party).
The symposium forms part of a comparative network project, funded by the RSE exploring women’s leadership across three sectors: politics, industry and higher education. It is being undertaken by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH) at the University of Edinburgh; the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA) at the University of Ghana; and the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences (CSSS), Kolkata.
The symposium is online only and free to attend.
Co-creating a Manifesto for Change
Friday 27 March 2026, 11:30-13:30 GMT
Register free via Teams Webinar at https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/2f3b95d7-1f06-41cf-a090-02df946ed90d@2e9f06b0-1669-4589-8789-10a06934dc61
You are warmly invited to the final symposium of the RSE-funded project Gender Equality: Transforming Women’s Global Leadership. The overarching project aims to understand more about the facilitators and barriers to women’s career advancement and senior leadership across three sectors (higher education; industry; and politics) and across three countries (Ghana, India and UK). It was developed in response to the conclusions of the 64th session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women, that while some progress has been made, there is still no country across the globe which has achieved gender equality. During the symposium, the project team will share early findings and participants will be asked to reflect on, and help co-create a manifesto for change.
Speakers include: Professor Grace Diabah (MIASA, University of Ghana), Professor Jyotsna Jalan (Centre for the Study of Social Sciences, Kolkata, India), Dr Omolabake Fakunle (University of Edinburgh), Professor Fiona MacKay (University of Edinburgh).
Programme (All times GMT)
· Chair for first session: Professor Grace Diabah
11.30-11.40: Welcome from the Chair and overview of the symposium
11.40 – 12.10: Early findings from the project and introduction to the draft manifesto
Overview of findings: Professor Lesley McAra
Reflections on implications of findings: Professor Jyotsna Jalan
Introduction to the manifesto and the small group discussion: Professor Lesley McAra
12.10 – 12.25 : Small group discussion of the draft manifesto
12.25 – 12.35: Co-creation activity
12.35 – 12.45: Break
· Chair for second session: Dr Omolabake Fakunle
12.45 - 12.55: Report from the small group discussion (aggregate ranking and summary of free text)
Professor Lesley McAra
12.55 – 13.20: Panel reflections on the draft manifesto and results of the ranking
Panellists: Professor Sharon Cowan
Professor Grace Diabah
Professor Fiona MacKay
13.20 – 13.30: Closing, next steps and votes of thanks
Professor Lesley McAra
Co-creating a manifesto for change
The following list of actions has been derived from the early findings of the project Gender Equality: Transforming Women’s Global Leadership. During the symposium you will have the chance to discuss this draft manifesto. As part of the symposium, we will create a link for your to rank the items from highest to lowest priority and make suggestions for additions or exclusions. The results of this co-creation exercise will be fed back as part of the final plenary session.
· Education on gender equality, parenting and fatherhood at secondary school for all pupils
· Access to free childcare
· Access to free day-care for relatives who are elderly or otherwise in need of care
· Affirmative action/setting statutory quotas for numbers of women (e.g. on political party candidate shortlists, on executive boards of corporations and senior leadership teams in universities).
· Creation of an investment platform to enable greater access to finance for women entrepreneurs, increased post-doctoral fellowship funding, and to tackle financial barriers related to entry into politics
· Creation of a global platform to provide mentoring and sponsorship of early career women and those transitioning into leadership roles
· Tighter and more effective regulation of social media nationally and internationally
· Support for sectors to install gender sensitive working practices (regular audits, review of workload allocation, tackling gender segregation in role)
· More effective mechanisms to call out and report discriminatory behaviours and actions
· Leadership development across each sector, which includes focus on core attributes (e.g. resilience), key skills (e.g. negotiating and influencing), and values (e.g. diversity through recognising and challenging unconscious bias, sexism and misogyny, ageism and more).