Ten simple rules for pushing boundaries of inclusion at academic events

by Siobhan Mackenzie Hall, Daniel Kochin, Carmel Carne, Patricia Herterich, Kristen Lenay Lewers, Mohamed Abdelhack, Arun Ramasubramanian, Juno Felecia Michael Alphonse, Visotheary Ung, Sara El-Gebali, Christopher Brian Currin, Esther Plomp, Rachel Thompson, Malvika Sharan

Inclusion at academic events is facing increased scrutiny as the communities these events serve raise their expectations for who can practically attend. Active efforts in recent years to bring more diversity to academic events have brought progress and created momentum. However, we must reflect on these efforts and determine which underrepresented groups are being disadvantaged. Inclusion at academic events is important to ensure diversity of discourse and opinion, to help build networks, and to avoid academic siloing. All of these contribute to the development of a robust and resilient academic field. We have developed these Ten Simple Rules both to amplify the voices that have been speaking out and to celebrate the progress of many Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity practices that continue to drive the organisation of academic events. The Rules aim to raise awareness as well as provide actionable suggestions and tools to support these initiatives further. This aims to support academic organisations such as the Deep Learning Indaba, Neuromatch Academy, the IBRO-Simons Computational Neuroscience Imbizo, Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG), Arabs in Neuroscience, FAIRPoints, and OLS (formerly Open Life Science). This article is a call to action for organisers to reevaluate the impact and reach of their inclusive practices.