The European Crystallographic Association (ECA) – in agreement with its scope of advancing crystallography and promoting cooperation among scientists – declares its commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusivity in all its multiple activities. This comprises:
- Ensuring gender balance in conferences and meetings.
Organizers of events are encouraged to follow the guidelines first implemented during ECM31 (for a general overview see https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1003903). The speaker policy setting up the statistical minimum to be looked for by chairs in their session organization should be reviewed every five years, to monitor the effectiveness of the policy itself. To facilitate this, the statistics related to a specific event should be made publicly available to the community. - Ensuring gender balance in the composition of committees and panels.
As in the case for the speaker policy, the 30% ratio is the bare minimum target to be respected. - Supporting the professional growth and advancement of minorities within the crystallographic community and making research environments more diverse and inclusive.
ECA is not only committed to ensuring gender balance, but also to an equitable geographic distribution of all its activities. This includes Congresses and Schools that will take place in the different geographic areas belonging to the ECA “region”. ECA, as well as meetings and schools supported by ECA, will explicitly take into account diversity in socioeconomic status when considering issues such as setting registration fees or membership fees and distributing grants.
ECA fully agrees with the IUCr Gender Equity and Diversity Statement and the IUCr Gender Equity and Diversity Committee Code of Conduct and underlines the importance of appointing a dedicated advisor to help implement a gender equity and diversity policy.