HB Blog: Follow the journey

At the heart of Homeward Bound is the foundational belief in women with a STEMM background leading for the greater good. The aim of the initiative is to build a collective of 1000 women leaders with a STEMM background, equipped with the skills to collaborate more...

In these days of unprecedented uncertainty with the spread of COVID-19, the power of and need for effective, strategic and consistent communication from leaders is in focus more than ever. Every word spoken by politicians, health policy experts and scientists is...

Photo credit: Juan Gama de Cossío     What does a drop in the ocean mean for you? Something small? Insignificant? I think about this a lot. Once upon a time big change came from powerful leaders. Now it is coming from many places and many people. As a CEO of large...

Cassandra Brooks (left) and Dr Justine Shaw (right). Image: Will Rogan Icy wind from the Antarctic continent stings our faces as we crouch in the zodiacs straining to hear the crackling of the ice. Water rises and falls around us as if it’s breathing. Small pieces of...

Walking up the snowy peak in Antarctica I am pinching myself. High above the ocean, the strange shapes of icebergs make for a surreal panorama. It is quite literally awe inspiring. It is a place where our Mother Earth reigns supreme. I am not alone. I stand with 100...

MAKING RESEARCH USEFUL: THE POWER OF DEEPER COLLABORATION BETWEEN ACADEMIA AND POLICYMAKERS Q&A with Aparna Lal and Julia May, Co-founder, Visibility stream, Homeward Bound Aparna Lal is an ecologist and public health researcher interested in how environmental changes...

Imagine travelling on a journey away from everything familiar to you, to spend three weeks on an intensive journey of self-discovery. On this journey you develop and hone your leadership skills with 100 other like-minded, purpose-driven women in STEMM to build a...

I find myself on a ship, anchored on a harbour in Antarctica. Outside the window, the silken water is broken by clumps of ice and framed by soaring, snow-covered mountains. On the ship with me are 100 extraordinary women from 33 countries, all driven by the same...

What is trust? Trust is a key pillar of all good relationships; it is the foundation that supports strong and long-lasting collaborations. It is the base of effective team work. Trust can be thought of as an invitation: an invitation to openness, to communication, to...

As a marine ecologist, I applied for Homeward Bound without having any idea of what leadership could mean for a scientist like me. For a long time, the word leadership was beyond my grasp, for the simple reason that the word has no translation in French. However, I...

We are sailing across the Antarctic Peninsula with Homeward Bound, a global leadership initiative aiming to connect and train women scientists from around the world to influence the policies and decisions that will shape the future of our planet. This is the largest...

  As a young woman, I was involved in a dance community. Before dancing, we held each other’s arms in pairs and stared into each other’s eyes while taking deep breaths. We then touched each other’s foreheads with our fingers and together said “I trust you because I...

By Dr Jen Martin (Visibility Faculty - Onboard Sci-Comms Facilitator)   The clouds were sitting low, obscuring the mountains as the one hundred women of Team HB4 finally came together in Ushuaia last night for our welcome dinner. As we gathered, the noise levels rose...

  Resilience is the ability to mentally or emotionally cope with a difficult situation and to recover quickly from it. For leaders, resilience is key since difficult situations arise on a regular basis, both in our personal or professional lives. And, if I learned...

In just over a week, the fourth edition of Homeward Bound will be setting sail from Ushuaia, Argentina to one of the most ecologically pristine environments in the world ̶ Antarctica.  On this journey, nearly 100 women with a background in STEMM (science, technology,...

Rampant gender bias aside, one of the most concerning aspects of scientific funding trends in Australia is that already well-established investigators are being funded at the expense of those who are still developing as leaders.  In essence, scientists are eating their young.

The world is facing many challenges at the moment, not the least of which is the climate emergency and the preservation of the world’s biodiversity. We know that climate change threatens what we have assumed would be eternal. We also know that our economic and political systems make it harder to protect the world’s wilderness.

100 Days Later Kate Clarke, Senior Veterinarian with Eureka Veterinary Hospital, takes us back to the point on the ship when she first drafted her 100 Day Plan and how much of that plan has played out since returning from Antarctica  100 DAYS LATER: KATE CLARKE Our...

4 days until the ship leaves Ushuaia, Argentina, for Antarctica, carrying the 78 women in science who form the second Homeward Bound cohort. Before, during and after the voyage, we'll bring you the stories of more than 20 of those women, in their words and pictures:...

It's just one week until the ship leaves Ushuaia, Argentina, for Antarctica, carrying the 78 women in science who form the second Homeward Bound cohort. Before, during and after the voyage, we'll bring you the stories of more than 20 of those women, in their words and...