#GAReads | Nature Conferences: no more 'manels'
photo credit: The Climate Reality Project, via Unsplash
“Nature Conferences: no more ‘manels’“:
That women from under-represented minorities receive few speaking invitations to the world’s largest Earth-science conference has again shone a spotlight on science’s diversity deficit (H. L. Ford et al. Nature 576, 32–35; 2019).
Conferences are essential for research communication, and taking part is important for career progression. But turning the dial on diversity — and stopping it from slipping back — is proving difficult. Our investigation this year of ‘manels’ and ‘manferences’ — panels and conferences dominated by male speakers — showed that sometimes a heroic effort to diversify them one year is followed by business as usual the next (Nature 573, 184–186; 2019).
At Nature, we are aware of our own shortcomings — that our authors and referees, for example, include too few women — and of our responsibilities to turn things around (Nature 558, 344; 2018). This week, we begin a more concerted push to promote diversity across our editorial and publishing activities, including concrete commitments in the events that we organize (see go.nature.com/36jtfr).