|
Words by Rinki Saha Edited by Conchi Izquierdo, Lucie Yammine and Laurie Herviou There have been many events in the past which encouraged society to reflect on the expectations of diversity and inclusion, but 2020 has been the year, while amidst an ongoing pandemic, the whole world came together to act towards some real change. In light of those memorable historic moments, INet-NYC organized a panel discussion on Tuesday, January 12th, 2021, called “Diversity and Inclusion in Academia: Perspectives from Europe to the US”.  Flyer of the event by Matthew Baffuto INet-NYC presidents, Dr. Conchi Izquierdo and Dr. Laurie Herviou, were the two amazing moderators for this event. Our guests for this discussion were Dr. Lidia Borrell-Damián from Science Europe and Dr. Yaihara Fortis Santiago from MSKCC. Both panelists are very passionate and have wealth of knowledge on this topic of diversity and inclusion. They showed us interesting data that helped us understand how much work still needs to be done to create a more diverse and inclusive environment. If you are interested, here is the video link for the whole event (also at the end of the article). To start the discussion, Dr. Fortis explained that diversity in academia mostly covers all the aspects of gender, sexual preferences/identity, religion, ethnicity, races, disabilities or abilities, etc. Dr. Borrell added that in Europe, it is only allowed to record data on gender while racial discrimination data are not available. In the US and Europe, the religious belief data is not publicly available. Interestingly, diversity data shows that different ethnicities need support in a different aspect. For example, in the US, from undergraduate to faculty level, Black and Latinos are not necessarily suffering from the same problem in academia. It is not a monolith. The most affected group is Native Americans: their representation is so alarmingly low that they are not even included in diversity data. Dr. Fortis highly encouraged everyone to look at the ethnicity representation data regarding their field on the National Science Foundation website. Dr. Borrell also showed us some interesting data, which indicated that the representation of women in academia is approximately 48% but 20% fewer women transition from researcher to principal investigator positions compared to men in the field of life sciences. She also pointed out that, as the data on ethnicity is not available in Europe, it is necessary to voice this problematic situation even more. The inclusion aspect in academia is less discussed compared to diversity. Dr. Fortis explained that the basic concept of inclusion is much harder to measure, and thus to change under any given circumstances. A more inclusive environment indeed needs cultural changes, which takes a longer time. "Inclusion is this notion that everyone, regardless of any of the social identifiers, have the right to be respected, appreciated and valued in the spaces that they occupy." Dr. Fortis Next, we discussed the importance of diversity and inclusion in academia. Dr. Borrell stated that diversity and inclusion are one of the key ingredients to make a better society for the next generation. She provided a whiplash study as an example to pinpoint the importance of diversity to improve research accuracy and quality. This study argues that, when engineering models simulating and analyzing whiplash scale-down data acquired on a male population to draw conclusions on a female population, it is not scientifically accurate. There are thus scientific and societal reasons behind the importance of diversity in scientific research. There is no doubt that, if scientific studies would have continued only in one gender, finding a cure for the whole population would be impossible. Dr. Fortis brought up another perspective on the question, with an amazing example of Dr. Esteban Gonzalez Burchard physician-scientist at UCSF and how he came up with a solution to the prevalence of asthma death in the Hispanic/Latino population in the northeast US. This incident and many other examples indicate that different people aim to solve the same problem with a different approach, which is essential for the accelerated advancement of science. In short, a more diverse environment is likely to make more progress in the scientific world in a shorter period of time.  What are the difficulties of diversity and inclusion in academia? From her experience, Dr. Fortis stated that one of the biggest challenges of doing diversity and inclusion work is that it is invisible and diversity works are not compensated nor valued. Most of the time we are in a rush and want a manual or checklists to make a workplace more diverse and inclusive. There is not a single solution available that can change everything over-night. Dr. Fortis mentioned that social scientists have done some magnificent work that can be used to build a strategy to make a workplace more diverse and inclusive. The strategies of creating a diverse environment need active collaboration between social scientists, anthropologists, and organizational psychologists to use their collective knowledge for recruitment procedures. Dr. Borrell portrayed a completely different angle on this topic. She explained the importance of research assessment in the career of an academician. She also showed interesting data on how different aspects such as gender, discipline, affiliation, seniority, ethnicity, and disability are taken into consideration when juries are evaluating the career of the candidates. She highly recommends that European research assessment panelists get the proper training to avoid personal biases. "The sustainable solution is education, teaching about the importance of equality and inclusion from a very early age." Regarding the necessary actions towards a more diverse and inclusive environment in academia, Dr. Fortis suggested to start scrutinizing the available strategies of the recruitment committees, be it graduate or faculty level. There are always lots of biases that exist during the admission procedure, it is not straightforward or empiric. For instance, meritocracy or from which institution the candidates were previously trained highly impact the recruitment decisions. A strategic direction should be employed to avoid these already existing biases. At the individual level, we all need to unlearn and acknowledge our personal biases and take action to be part of a more diverse and inclusive environment. Dr. Fortis reminded everyone that minority groups should not be the only ones raising their voices to influence changes: it is everyone’s duty. Dr. Borrell also advocated that institutional leadership and their public statements regarding equality or inclusion policies are of great importance to influence changes. "We all have to want to do better and be intentional in order for us to move forward as a community." Dr. Fortis "We all have to take our part of responsibility to make a better society that is more inclusive and more respectful." Dr. Borrell We tried to touch upon all the basic points which were discussed during the event. Our panelists from two different continents inspired us that everything is not about problems: we have a ray of hope because a lot of people are talking about this issue and many dedicated scientists are working very hard towards making a more diverse and inclusive future.
To go further and become more aware (more resources mentioned during the discussion):
0 Comments
|
Archives
October 2024
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed