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Colin Beesley, Head of Media Services, DPAG
The Diversity Interventions conference took place April 7-8, 2022, at the Examination Schools in Oxford, as well as online. In tandem, a sister conference was held by Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) in Australia, with common themes and joint abstract submission.
The idea for the conference started from conversations between the RDM Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and Strategic Projects Facilitator Charlotte Smith with researchers and professional staff across as the University, Advance HE, and SAGE. ). The conference was then conceived and managed by Co-Directors Dr Pavel Ovseiko (RDM) and Sarah Dickinson-Hyams (Advance HE), and organised by Head of the Conference Secretariat Louise Cotterell (DPAG and RDM), and International Charters Development Officer Kay Steven (Advance HE).
The vision for the Diversity Interventions conference was to unite Athena Swan professionals, researchers, and advocates from across the world to share best practice, discuss emerging innovations, and exchange personal experiences in designing, implementing, and evaluating interventions and action plans. This vision came to fruition thanks to the funding from the John Fell Fund, van Houten Fund, and Advance HE, collaboration with SAGE, and support from the Local Organising Committee and volunteers.
A "perfectly designed conference"
The conference proved to be a great success, with 43 speakers from Australia, Canada, the EU, India, Ireland, the UK and USA as well as over 200 in-person and online delegates, representing over 100 institutions, across 21 countries coming together to tackle some of the biggest challenges on the way to developing a science of diversity interventions.
In their feedback, delegates noted that it was an “excellent” and “perfectly designed conference”, they were “impressed with the quality and variety of presentations”, and that the conference “left all of us invigorated”.
I thought the conference was a great success – really useful and timely topics and debates, and the networking opportunities really valuable. Thank you also for all the care and attention to making us all feel looked after.
- Conference Delegate
The conference team is now working to disseminate the outputs from the conference and maximise its impact. The video recordings from the conference are being edited for sharing with the wider audience on the conference website. The conference proceedings and the book of abstracts are being prepared for publication in BMC Proceedings – an online open access journal devoted specifically to conference publications of a cross- or multi-disciplinary nature. Collaborations, methods, and procedures established during the conference will inform the development of the next Diversity Interventions conference, which will be hosted by SAGE in Australia in 2023.
Read more about the conference, and access the session recordings, conference proceedings, and book of abstracts (once available).