Reflecting on her time at the Women In Sport Summit, Griffith University’s Naomi McCarthy discussed how the institution is providing a brighter future for women’s sport.

Supporting women’s sport:

Commenting on how Griffith is supporting women’s sport, McCarthy said the institution has done a lot of research in high-performance athletes, as well as having several groups, including one for sport and gender equity.

“We’ve got a huge number of elite female athletes that we support at university. So, we thought this is a really great platform to now introduce and stand up for the women in sport strategy to see where and how the university can have an impact on the sport industry to have better outcomes for women in sport,” McCarthy said.

McCarthy also discussed Griffith’s strategies to grow women’s sport, where she said they work with the Gold Coast Titans, Gold Coast Suns and Surfing Australia, but also offer women in sport leadership scholarships which aim to build the capacity of female leaders through MBAs and short courses.

Future goals:

On Griffith’s goals for women’s sport, McCarthy said they want to keep supporting elite female athletes, but also conduct more research around women’s sport.

“We would like to see a lot more research done in women in sport, but also bring more women researchers or academics into sport and have a greater pipeline for academics that are then going to go into research,” McCarthy said.

“The other really key area is creating influence in the education and leadership space because we’re missing gender equity in the leadership space within sport,” she said.

 Building future elite athletes:

On the potential to develop high-performance centres or programs after a successful Commonwealth Games for Griffith athletes, McCarthy said the institution has created a high-performance a swimming program that includes Emma McKeon and Kaylee McKeown.

Additionally, Griffith has created a successful high-performance rowing programme, which they’re looking to expand on in the future.

To read the previous story from the Women In Sport Summit, where Canva head of strategic partnerships, Jonathan Harley discussed how they’re enabling organisations to create compelling content, click here.