Women's leadership in designing social innovation: mutual learning in the Asia-Pacific

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This follow-on project extends and reinforces impact generated through the AHRC Network grant 'Design for Social Innovation Research Network: Bridging the UK and Asia-Pacific Practices' (AH/N004736/1). Its primary aim is to deliver a leadership-focused reciprocal peer mentoring programme for 24x women [12 mentors, 12 mentees and more [x] beyond) working to deliver social impact in Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and Australia. The 15 month programme will focus on business resilience, community cohesion and social impact, through respectful, responsive and reciprocal peer-to-peer learning. A reciprocal model of peer mentoring extends the impact beyond participants as they will be supported to mentor other women in their organisations. The mentoring programme will be supported by two public events, a Roundtable Discussion online forum and a Public Symposium in Bangkok, where we will engage with policy makers, governments, NGOs and think tanks supporting the gender equality agenda. This proposal leverages close collaborations with key partners with strong track records in the region in supporting social innovation in the creative sector. AWSEN, KOGEI-Net and the British Council will assist in participation and dissemination of the outcomes. The project builds on Designing Social Innovation in Asia-Pacific (DESIAP) network supported by an 2016 AHRC Network Fund. With this support, DESIAP has developed into a vibrant and active community of creative and social innovation practitioners across the Asia-Pacific region. Frameworks and tools for social innovation, within the Asia-Pacific and more widely, have been disseminated through well-attended events, peer-reviewed publications and a popularly-accessed website. Insights from the previous DESIAP AHRC Network and follow-on activities identified a lack of leadership training support for women across the Asia-Pacific region. Women are often the driving force of social initiatives in communities, yet suffer most from socio-cultural and economical inequalities due to their gender. Entrenched beliefs and gender bias have led to continuing gender pay gaps and under-representation of women in leadership positions across all four countries, whether in Thailand and Malaysia, two countries undergoing economic transition, or in Japan and Australia, OECD countries where persistent gender-based and other forms of discrimination limit women's access to leadership in the creative economy and other sectors. The UN General Assembly statement on the International Year of Creative Economy for Sustainable Development 2021, identifies the creative sectors as key drivers, particularly for developing countries, to shift towards higher-productivity and higher-income economic activity. Increasing women's participation and promoting gender equality has been identified as crucial to this shift. This proposal deepens the international impact of the DESIAP AHRC Network by offering accessible and gender-inclusive development to improve business resilience and community cohesion. It addresses two SDGs: 5. Gender Equality and 8. Decent Work and Economic Growth. A tailored, peer-led professional development programme implementing knowledge generated through the AHRC-funded DESIAP research can accelerate participants' leadership abilities, empowering them to enable others. Planned activities centred on regionally focused mutual learning and knowledge exchange to build leadership skills, increase social capital and offer broader opportunities to deepen their impact. By empowering women working in social innovation to increase their leadership capacity through reciprocal peer-mentoring, built on and extending models developed through the DESIAP AHRC Network, the project aims to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in the creative economy of these respective countries.