The Women of FOCIS: Promoting Equality and Inclusiveness in a Professional Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies

The authors of this article, all women who have been deeply committed to the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies (FOCIS), performed a retrospective analysis of gender equality practices of FOCIS to identify areas for improvement and make recommendations accordingly. Gender data were obtained and analyzed for the period from January 2010 to July 2021. Outcome measures included numbers of men and women across the following categories: membership enrollment, meeting and course faculty and attendees, committee and leadership composition. FOCIS’ past and present leaders, steering committee members, FCE directors, individual members, as well as education, annual meeting scientific program and FCE committee members and management staff of FOCIS were surveyed by email questionnaire for feedback on FOCIS policies and practice with respect to gender equality and inclusion. Although women represent 50% of the membership, they have been underrepresented in all leadership, educational, and committee roles within the FOCIS organization. Surveying FOCIS leadership and membership revealed a growing recognition of disparities in female leadership across all FOCIS missions, leading to significant improvement in multiple areas since 2016. We highlight these changes and propose a number of recommendations that can be used by FOCIS to improve gender equality.

Towards women-inclusive ecology: Representation, behavior, and perception of women at an international conference

Conferences are ideal platforms for studying gender gaps in science because they are important cultural events that reflect barriers to women in academia. Here, we explored women’s participation in ecology conferences by analyzing female representation, behavior, and personal experience at the 1st Meeting of the Iberian Society of Ecology (SIBECOL). The conference had 722 attendees, 576 contributions, and 27 scientific sessions. The gender of attendees and presenters was balanced (48/52% women/men), yet only 29% of the contributions had a woman as last author. Moreover, men presented most of the keynote talks (67%) and convened most of the sessions. Our results also showed that only 32% of the questions were asked by women, yet the number of questions raised by women increased when the speaker or the convener was a woman. Finally, the post-conference survey revealed that attendees had a good experience and did not perceive the event as a threatening context for women. Yet, differences in the responses between genders suggest that women tended to have a worse experience than their male counterparts. Although our results showed clear gender biases, most of the participants of the conference failed to detect it. Overall, we highlight the challenge of increasing women’s scientific leadership, visibility and interaction in scientific conferences and we suggest several recommendations for creating inclusive meetings, thereby promoting equal opportunities for all participants.

Promoting inclusive metrics of success and impact to dismantle a discriminatory reward system in science

Success and impact metrics in science are based on a system that perpetuates sexist and racist “rewards” by prioritizing citations and impact factors. These metrics are flawed and biased against already marginalized groups and fail to accurately capture the breadth of individuals’ meaningful scientific impacts. We advocate shifting this outdated value system to advance science through principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion. We outline pathways for a paradigm shift in scientific values based on multidimensional mentorship and promoting mentee well-being. These actions will require collective efforts supported by academic leaders and administrators to drive essential systemic change.

This Essay argues that success and impact metrics in science are based on a system that perpetuates sexist and racist ‘rewards’ by prioritizing citations and impact factors; the authors advocate shifting this outdated value system to advance science through principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Improving sex and gender identity equity and inclusion at conservation and ecology conferences

Conferences are important for professional learning and for building academics' reputations and networks. All members of the scientific community should feel supported and free to contribute their best at such events. I evaluated the actions and policies of conferences held by international academic societies for ecology and conservation since 2009, to assess whether conferences support participation across sexual orientations and gender identities. Although half of the 30 conferences had codes of conduct promoting equity, diversity and inclusion, the quantity and quality of initiatives to support such principles varied between societies and years. Conferences with codes were significantly more likely to implement structural initiatives to minimize discrimination or harassment, such as procedures for reporting misconduct and submission guidelines to promote speaker diversity, as well as initiatives to support parents. Initiatives minimizing barriers to attendance were rare; 47% of conferences were held in locations that discriminate against certain identities and <10% promoted event safety and accessibility to potential attendees. Piecemeal actions and inadequate conference evaluation have resulted in no significant growth in gender equity or diversity initiatives. I propose a six-step timeline that improves conference inclusion by embedding diversity and equity into planning, financing, marketing, scientific and social scheduling, evaluation and reporting.

Evaluating the prevalence and quality of conference codes of conduct

Efforts to increase inclusion in science face multiple barriers, including cultural and social behaviors in settings such as academic conferences. Conferences are beneficial, but the culture can promote inequities and power differentials that harm historically underrepresented groups. Science suffers when conference culture propagates exclusion and discrimination that leads to attrition of scientists. Codes of conduct represent a tool to shift conference culture to better support diverse scientists and clearly detail unacceptable behaviors. We examined the prevalence and content of codes of conduct at biology conferences in the United States and Canada. We highlight how codes of conduct address issues of sexual misconduct and identity-based discrimination. Surprisingly, only 24% of the 195 surveyed conferences had codes. Of the conferences with codes, 43% did not mention sexual misconduct and 17% did not mention identity-based discrimination. Further, 26% of these conferences failed to include a way to report violations of the code and 35% lacked consequences for misconduct. We found that larger and national conferences are more likely to have codes than smaller (P = 0.04) and international or regional (P = 0.03) conferences. Conferences that lack codes risk creating and perpetuating negative environments that make underrepresented groups feel unwelcome, or worse, actively cause harm. We recommend that conferences have codes that are easily accessible, explicitly address identity-based discrimination and sexual misconduct, provide channels for anonymous impartial reporting, and contain clear consequences. These efforts will improve inclusivity and reduce the loss of scientists who have been historically marginalized.