Checklist for Diversity Balanced Events
Whether it is an international conference, local symposium, or internal workshop: fostering more diverse, inclusive and barrier-free encounters between researchers, co-workers, or students leads to high quality collaboration and (scientific) innovation. This page offers some practical aspects to consider in the organization of events, as well as helpful links and guidelines.
Careful planning is essential for attractive and effective events, where all participants can develop their full potential. ETH Diversity encourages event organizers to consider the following practical aspects; with the goal that all participants feel more welcome, can work without hinderance, and are represented adequately.
These recommendations are not mandatory for events organized at ETH Zurich. Some might be easy to implement, while others are more challenging, depending on the context, form of the event, location, and other factors. The ETH Diversity team is readily available to discuss questions and offer further advice.
Guides for Sustainable and Inclusive Events
ETH members organise more than 3000 events every year. The guides for Sustainable and Inclusive Events support organisers of ETH events in making a contribution to the climate goals of ETH Zurich and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The "Checklist for Diversity Balanced Events" on this page provides more detailed information on the chapter Diversity & Inclusion of the guides.
Organizing an Event? How to Make it Diversity Balanced
- Define the topic of your event as broadly as possible to expand the pool of researchers and speakers who get involved.
- Make your organizing committee diverse. Install a team that keeps an eye on aspects of diversity and accessibility. Contact points and persons are appointed in advance, so that participants can address needs, feedback, or complaints (e.g. sexual harassment, experience of racism) directly.
- Create a declaration of non-discrimination and inclusion for your event. Make your diversity policy visible by placing an initial statement in the event announcements. Include guidelines, for example for inclusive language and accessible presentations. Consult the Respect Code of Conduct of ETH Zurich.
- Use diverse representation in images and inclusive language when announcing and promoting the event. More information and recommendations from ETH Diversity on gender-sensitive and non-discriminatory language.
- Determine which topics and people / identities (gender, race, age, academic position, etc.) you want represented at your event. Determine a number or percentage and invite speakers accordingly to meet your desired standards.
- Go beyond the experts that immediately come to your mind to assure the desired diversity balance. Ask other researchers in the field, consult databases (see below), or search online and on social media
- Consider using a blind review process to minimize implicit bias when evaluating submissions.
- Define clear criteria to rank applications, and determine how the final selection will be prioritized, for example by considering equally ranked submissions according to diversity characteristics.
- Account for the costs of accessibility in your event budget (i.e. additional infrastructure, sign language interpreter, support for participants with fewer economic means...).
- Inform speakers on how to make their contributions such as texts, presentations, or printed material accessible by providing literature or checklists. Offer practical support and a contact for their questions.
- Inform participants and presenters early on about accessibility of the location. Do your presenters need barrier-free access or technical equipment?
- What is your event language? Consider possibilities for translations or the inclusion of different languages. Are non-native speakers of the event language supported?
- Offer flexible participation fees to ensure participation of people with less economic means. Provide information on possible fundings and consider financial support for travel expenses, i.e. for young researchers.
- Fix and communicate the time and date of the event as early as possible. This allows for easier planning of care tasks, barrier-free travel and accommodation, and so on.
- Try to plan events and sessions in accordance with the schedule of an ordinary working day, to facilitate the organization for people with care duties.
- In the planning of your events consider major cultural or religious holidays.
- Consider planning your event in hybrid format to ensure accessibility. For online formats include options to interact, such as chat function, virtual connection, and online tours of the site. Make sure that the online presence of the event is barrier-free (e.g., subtitles in video conference software).
- Check whether the venue is accessible with public transport and the location of parking spots for people with disability.
- Find appropriate and if needed barrier-free options for accommodation nearby. List suitable offers for people with different financial means.
- At registration, allow guests to share their preferred pronouns and what name they would like to be addressed by, should it differ from their legal name. Include the printing of pronouns on name tags, but always offer possibility to not state this information. If it is necessary to ask about participants’ gender: offer more than two options, the option to opt out, and state why you need the information. Get support by ETH Diversity for more information about pronouns.
- Monitor the enrolments. Promote your event through «unusual» channels if the diversity balance of attendees is not in place (such as transdisciplinary mailing lists, social media pages).
- At registration ask people with disabilities about any resources or means necessary to fulfill their needs. Inform speakers and participants about the possibility of requesting specific measures.
- Check if participants are accompanied by family or personal assistants and what resources are needed. For events outside of usual working hours consider participants with care duties: offer childcare services and/or a family room for parents. For more information about childcare consult the ETH service point Hello Kids!
- Ensure accessibility of information material, prints, and presentations. If possible, provide live streams and recordings of the event with subtitles and audio description.
- Offer alternative texts for images and transcriptions for audio files.
- To increase the legibility of printed matter, sans serif fonts like Arial are used in a sufficiently large font size and at least 1.2 times the line spacing, as well as high contrast (pay attention to red-green visual impairment when choosing colors).
- Make sure the signage for the event is accessible to people with visual disabilities and written in inclusive language, including genderneutral icons.
- Check the accessibility of the venue and communicate information early on. Consult the checklist by ETH Zürich for more information on accessible technology, spaces, and audio systems.
- Check if rooms, restroom facilities, buffets, exhibition booths, and speaker podiums are accessible for people with physical disabilities, and in addition to standing tables, seating is also available to allow people to interact at eye level.
- Consider the need for reduced noise, provide enough suitable rooms for group discussions and offer the possibility to eat and rest in a quieter space. If possible, offer private rooms for prayer, childcare, and further needs.
- Provide a plan for toilet facilities; check with the facility service if it is possible to re-lable facilities to be more inclusive for the duration of your event. Here you find an overview of gender-neutral and barrier free toilets at ETH Zürich.
- Ask speakers and participants about food restrictions and preferences and, if necessary, identify critical ingredients. Relevant product information, such as vegetarian, vegan, allergens, kosher, or halal is provided directly with the food.
- Some participants might struggle to sit still for an extended period of time. Consider offering various seatings or designated areas for standing where people can move around easily. Active breaks and other activities can help everyone to stay focused.
- Plan social encounters and networking gatherings mindfully, so that people can get to know each other and not only mingle with peers, and social anxiety is reduced. If it makes sense, offer networking slots for certain groups, i.e., LGBTAIQ+ researchers, women leaders, BIPoC students (Black, Indigenous, and other People of Colour), ...
- Consider accessibility for the accompanying program. Aim to plan it as accessible as possible and provide detailed information early on.
- Local organizations and artists that promote inclusion and diversity are present in your accompanying program.
- Take measures to ensure an inclusive and respectful discussion culture (i.e., moderation, timekeeping, different modes of participation such as oral or written, inclusion of online participants).
- Introduce speakers not in third person but using direct language, such as «you published work xy and now work at xy» to avoid using pronouns if you don't know them.
- Show attendees how to include their pronouns in the video conference software and encourage everyone to make this change if they feel comfortable doing so.
- Get feedback during or after the event, ask what could be improved for it to be more accessible and inclusive. Reflect, collect practical experience, and share it with others.
Download Checklist for Diversity Balanced Events
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Contact
For further questions or support contact the ETH Diversity Team