Equity, diversity and inclusivity

Current
PhD
Inclusivity at the Behaviour 2023 congress

Inclusivity at the Behaviour 2023 congress

In 2023, our university hosted the Behaviour 2023 congress in Bielefeld, Germany. As part of the Organizing Committee, my colleagues and I took this opportunity to investigate equity, diversity and inclusivity (EDI) issues at academic conferences.

Although researchers are becoming more aware of EDI issues in academia, underrepresented minorities still experience barriers to inclusivity. We wanted to document what barriers unfold at academic conferences.

To identify these barriers, we collected:

  1. Survey data before the congress to record the diversity of attendees

  2. Observational and experimental data on question-asking behaviour to identify behavioural disparities between women and men during Q&A sessions

  3. Survey data after the congress to identify barriers experienced by people with different nationalities, genders and LGBTQIA+ identities

You can read all about our study in our publication in Ecology and Evolution.