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Conference scheduling undermines diversity efforts

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 4, pages 1283–1284 (2020)Cite this article

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To the Editor — Scientific conferences incorporate diversity-focused events into their programming to increase their diversity and inclusivity and to improve the conference experience for scientists from underrepresented groups (URGs)1. While simply adding diversity-focused events to conferences is positive, maximizing their impact requires that conferences organize and schedule these events to minimize well-acknowledged, problematic patterns such as the minority tax2. To our knowledge, the programming of diversity-focused events at conferences has not been systematically reviewed to identify the extent of these shortcomings and how they can be addressed.

Formats of diversity-focused events depend on whether they are targeting URGs or the broader conference audience (that is, the conference community including non-URGs). In the last three years, 21 (72%) of the surveyed conferences included diversity-focused events (87 events in total). The most common formats were socials (37%), workshops (30%) and symposia (15%). Diversity-focused events targeted either URGs (45%) or the broader conference audience (55%). URGs were primarily targeted with socials (67%), whereas broader audiences were targeted with a mixture of workshops (35%), symposia (27%) and socials (13%) (Fig. 1b). Socials and workshops were mostly used for events that focused on women (38% and 35%, respectively), as well as ethnic and racial minority groups (50% and 33%, respectively), whereas 70% of events focusing on the LGBTQ+ community were socials.

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Fig. 1: Patterns in the targeted audiences, formats and scheduling of diversity-focused events.

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The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neurobiology, Physiology, & Behavior, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Nicholas P. Burnett

  2. Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Emily E. King

  3. Department of Biomedical and Engineering Mechanics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Mary K. Salcedo

  4. Department of Animal Science, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

    Richelle L. Tanner

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA

    Kathryn Wilsterman

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  1. Nicholas P. Burnett
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  2. Emily E. King
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  3. Mary K. Salcedo
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  4. Richelle L. Tanner
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  5. Kathryn Wilsterman
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Correspondence to Nicholas P. Burnett.

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Supplementary Table 1, Fig. 1, Methods and Results.

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Burnett, N.P., King, E.E., Salcedo, M.K. et al. Conference scheduling undermines diversity efforts. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 1283–1284 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1276-5

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