Abstract:A lack of diversity limits progression of science. Thus, there is an urgent demand in science and the wider community for approaches that increase diversity, including gender diversity. We developed a novel, data-driven approach to conference speaker selection that identifies potential speakers based on scientific impact metrics that are frequently used by researchers, hiring committees, and funding bodies, to convincingly demonstrate parity in the quality of peer-reviewed science between men and women. The ap… Show more
“…As with any well-designed scientific event, you should provide opportunities for early career researchers, such as PhD students and postdocs, and commit to supporting a gender balance ( ). Detailed guidance on achieving gender balance has been covered previously ( Else, 2019 ; Martin, 2014 ; Vallence et al, 2019 ). Box 3.…”
Section: Make the Space Inclusive Equitable And Safementioning
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional modes of scientific communication. In-person conferences and seminars have been cancelled and most scientists around the world have been confined to their homes. Although challenging, this situation has presented an opportunity to adopt new ways to communicate science and build scientific relationships within a digital environment, thereby reducing the environmental impact and increasing the inclusivity of scientific events. As a group of researchers who have recently created online seminar series for our respective research communities, we have come together to share our experiences and insights. Only a few weeks into this process, and often learning ‘on the job’, we have collectively encountered different problems and solutions. Here, we share our advice on formats and tools, security concerns, spreading the word to your community and creating a diverse, inclusive and collegial space online. We hope our experience will help others launch their own online initiatives, helping to shape the future of scientific communication as we move past the current crisis.
“…As with any well-designed scientific event, you should provide opportunities for early career researchers, such as PhD students and postdocs, and commit to supporting a gender balance ( ). Detailed guidance on achieving gender balance has been covered previously ( Else, 2019 ; Martin, 2014 ; Vallence et al, 2019 ). Box 3.…”
Section: Make the Space Inclusive Equitable And Safementioning
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted traditional modes of scientific communication. In-person conferences and seminars have been cancelled and most scientists around the world have been confined to their homes. Although challenging, this situation has presented an opportunity to adopt new ways to communicate science and build scientific relationships within a digital environment, thereby reducing the environmental impact and increasing the inclusivity of scientific events. As a group of researchers who have recently created online seminar series for our respective research communities, we have come together to share our experiences and insights. Only a few weeks into this process, and often learning ‘on the job’, we have collectively encountered different problems and solutions. Here, we share our advice on formats and tools, security concerns, spreading the word to your community and creating a diverse, inclusive and collegial space online. We hope our experience will help others launch their own online initiatives, helping to shape the future of scientific communication as we move past the current crisis.
“….) [16,46,47] % of women according to their institutional affiliation/nationality [1] % of women invited as a keynote speaker according to bibliometric parameters (H Index or Impact Factor publications) [33,48], % of time exposition spent by a woman and the difference in the order [15,36], % of women who ask questions and the difference in the order [3,26] Gender differences in Twitter participation during the event [49] % of women who receive prizes [6,47] LEADERSHIP % of women according to the type of active participation (Keynote/Plenary, Chair Moderator, Oral Speaker, Poster Speaker) [23,25,50] % of women according to the distribution of organizers' roles [23] % of women related to their contributions (poster, plenary speech. .…”
The importance of participation in academic conferences is well known for members of the scientific community. It is not only for the feedback and the improvement of the work, it is also about career development, building networks and increasing visibility. Nevertheless, women continue to be under-represented in these academic events and even more so in the most visible positions such as speaking roles. This paper presents the development of a tool based on performance indicators, which will allow monitoring and evaluating gender roles and inequalities in academic conferences in order to tackle the underrepresentation of women. The study identifies relevant perspectives (participation, organizational structure and attitudes) and designs specific lists of performance indicators for each of them. The tool is based on a combination of two multicriteria techniques, Analytic Hierarchy Process and Analytic Hierarchy Process Sort, and a qualitative analysis based on in-depth interviews and information gathered from a focus group. The use of the AHP multi-criteria decision technique has allowed us to weight the indicators according to the opinion of several experts, and with them to be able to generate from these weightings composite indicators for each of the three dimensions. The most relevant indicators were for the participation dimension. Additionally, the tool developed has been applied to an academic conference which has been monitored in real time. The results are shown as a traffic light visualization approach, where red means bad performance, yellow average performance and green good performance, helping us to present the results for each indicator. Finally, proposals for improvement actions addressed to the red indicators are explained. The work carried out highlights the need to broaden the study of gender equality in academic conferences, not only regarding the participation but also the performance of different roles and functions.
“…Conferences in many disciplines lack participant diversity in terms of gender, ethnicity and other identity groups as chairs and speakers (8,10,43). 97% of 270 conferences that we examined lacked a statement of gender balance or diversity ( Figure 2, Table S9) (8).…”
Section: Conferences Lack Gender and Career Stage Equitymentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Maintaining gender balance impacts both speakers and ECRs, who need to see representation and role models of their own gender in their field. Without clear guidelines and targets, excuses will always be made (and are actually made) to the point people claim there are no available speakers, but oftentimes not all avenues for seeking female speakers were explored (43). There are multiple online, open access databases listing women and LGBTQIA ECR trainees and faculty which can be utilized for selection of conference speakers (129,130).…”
Section: Create Intersectionality and Career Stage Equity At Regionalmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Only 46% and 36% of conferences achieved gender parity for conference chairs and session chairs respectively; 37% and 27% achieved gender parity for conference organizers or steering committees and scientific committee respectively; 40% and 38% achieved gender parity for keynote and plenary speakers respectively and only 19% had equal numbers of male and female featured speakers (Table S9, Figure 2). The process by which speakers are selected, including speakers chosen from abstract submissions, can generally be improved by removing intended and unintended biases (20). The current lack of diversity hinders advancement in scholarship, and it is especially discouraging to junior researchers (Table S12).…”
Section: Conferences Need To Improve On Equity and Inclusivitymentioning
Scientific conferences provide valuable opportunities for researchers across career stages and disciplines to present their latest work and to network with their peers. The advent of the internet has opened new possibilities for interaction, collaboration and networking, yet the uptake of tools enabling remote participation at scientific meetings has been slow. Academic conferences have become more international with high proliferation in the number of meetings and attendees, but the format and quality of their organization lags behind what is possible. As a result, the experience of attending conferences in many disciplines today is not appreciably different in many respects. A few conferences in some disciplines have recently implemented valuable changes for the community and have become more receptive to attendees with families. Many meetings could still be improved significantly in terms of diversity, inclusivity, promoting early career researcher (ECR) networking and career development, venue accessibility, and more importantly, reducing the meetings' carbon footprint. These issues are openly visible and to some extent discussed among researchers on social media. It is important to accelerate and mandate these efforts so that researchers in all disciplines, in particular ECRs, consistently benefit from scientific gatherings, for years to come. We examined the current state of over 200 national and international academic meetings in various disciplines for key features of inclusivity and sustainability and propose solutions to make conferences more modern, effective, equitable and intellectually productive for the research community and environmentally sustainable for our planet.
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