Events Guidelines

An event supported and/or organised by FLEET has to ensure that it is sufficiently diverse, inclusive, and complies with the FLEET gender equity policy and targets. These guidelines aim to assist the organising committees for such events in designing their event’s Equity and Diversity policy.

FLEET Equity & Diversity Policy

The guidelines are non-rigid: a committee does not have to do 100% but has to demonstrate a genuine effort in order to obtain FLEET support and/or funding.

In the event that the guidelines are not taken into consideration, the FLEET support and/or funding will not be provided.

Members of FLEET invited to speak at or serve on committees for externally organised events are strongly encouraged to promote the use of these guidelines.

Equity and Diversity (E & D) Guidelines for FLEET-supported events

1. The composition of the organising committee should comply with the “50/50 and if not then why not” rule.
2. The organising committee should have at least one member of FLEET E&D committee in the “E&D Champion” role.
3. As part of application for FLEET support/funding, the organising committee should formulate an E&D strategy and policy for the event and submit it to the FLEET E&D committee. The policy should be made public on the event’s website.
4. The organising committee should identify the baseline representation of female researchers in the particular field of research and aim to have at least the base rate representation on the list of invited speakers.
5. The committee should consider 50/50 gender balanced list of plenary speakers (as opposed to invited speakers), which is more easily achieved.
6. The committee should compose a list of invited female speakers well in advance, allow for significant redundancy, invite them first, and not replace with male speakers if they pull out.
7. The committee should recognise that, given that gender balance currently declines significantly with seniority, a more equal balance in the future can only be achieved if female ECRs are invited in greater numbers.
8. The committee should carefully consider the costs of travel to location, venue hire, and social events. The funds saved, e.g. by staying away from luxury resorts in isolated locations, should be redirected to make the event family-friendly.
9. The event should offer childcare and travel assistance to families, which will enable more women (and other primary carers) to attend.
10. The location should be family-friendly (i.e. have a family room, childcare/activities on-site) and social events should be inclusive.*

* ‘Support’ means sponsorship, full or partial funding, co-branding, or significant participation of FLEET members.

The following resource (and references therein) were used in preparing these guidelines:

Jenny Martin: Ten simple rules to achieve conference speaker gender balance