The BCA Council is pleased to announce the adoption of the following policy:

CONFERENCE POLICY

The BCA recognizes the positive impact that a conference speaking opportunity has on an individual’s track record and visibility. We also recognize that some sections of the scientific community are often under-represented in conference programmes, and that this can affect diversity in the long-term. Our policies are intended to ensure quality and equality.

SPEAKER INVITATION POLICY

The program chairs will ensure the highest quality scientific programme, with speakers that represent the broad diversity of our community. We aim to achieve a speaker and programme chair balance that reflects the make-up of our community without bias with regard to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, disabilities, age, geography, or national origin.

REPORTING POLICY

We will report and review statistics on the gender balance of the membership, the composition of committees and of invited speakers, selected speakers, session chairs, and attendees of the BCA Spring Meeting.

FEEDBACK

We welcome feedback to [email protected] on this policy and how it might be improved for future conferences to better ensure equality and diversity.

This policy was approved by the BCA Council Meeting on 26th March 2018 Version 2: Policy modified to include age in list of criteria in section on SPEAKER INVITATION POLICY following discussion at BCA AGM on 28th March 2018

Membership statistics (estimated from 2017 data)

Students – 50 female and 59 male: 46% female YC (not including students) – 20 female and 36 male: 36% female Standard members – 147 female and 355 male: 29% female Spring Meeting statistics

The following table gives the fraction of each role filled by women for each year (as a percentage).

  2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
Main Meeting          
Programme Committee: 53% 44% 27% 27% 27%
Plenary speakers: 0% 0% 25% 25% 75%
Keynotes: 17% 28% 11% 18% 28%
Speakers: 12% 35% 31% 24% 38%
Chairs: 53% 22% 23% 42% 43%
YCG Meeting          
Plenary speakers: 50% 50% 50% 0% 50%
Teaching session: n.a. 0% 0% 66% n.a.
Speakers: 31% 38% 62%   29%
Chairs: 67% 60% 40% 40% 33%