The IMRF #WomenInSAR initiative was launched at the World Maritime Rescue Congress in Vancouver, Canada, in June 2019. The principal aim of the initiative is to encourage more women and girls to take roles in maritime SAR by providing support for, and raising the profile of, women in the maritime SAR sector. The initiative also supports the “Empowering Women in Maritime” initiative of the International Maritime Organization as well as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. One of the aims of the IMRF was to produce recommendations and guidance on best practice for increasing the representation of women in both volunteer and paid SAR capacities. To make this possible, the IMRF first had to address the lack of hard data on the status of women in SAR by organising a global #WomenInSAR Survey. The aim of the survey was to discover what people in all kinds of roles across the SAR sector think about gender balance and equality of opportunity across the maritime SAR sector and – crucially – what might be done to improve things. Therefore, in October 2020, IMRF launched the #WomenInSAR survey. The survey attracted more than 1 600 responses from individuals and SAR organisations across the globe, highlighting that there had been a real need for such a survey. The results of the survey were included in the #WomenInSAR Report launched in March 2021. Four years after the launch of the initial survey, the IMRF returned to evaluate the progress the industry has made in gender balance and equality by conducting another industry-wide survey, with the aim of understanding of women’s current position in maritime SAR, as well as identifying other areas of improvement that can be made to make the industry a more inclusive place for everyone.