Gender equity at scientific events

Abstract Although the proportion of women in science, and in evolutionary biology in particular, has substantially increased over the last century, women remain underrepresented in academia, especially at senior levels. In addition, their scientific achievements do not always receive the same level of recognition as do men's, which can be reflected in a lower relative representation of women among invited speakers at conferences or specialized courses. Using announcements sent to the EvolDir mailing list between April 2016 and September 2017, and the symposium programs of three large evolutionary biology congresses held in summer 2017, we quantified the representation of women announced as invited speakers in conferences, congress symposia, and specialized courses. We compared the proportion of invited women to a baseline estimated using membership data of the associated scientific societies, and surveyed organizers to investigate their influence and that of potential gender‐ratio guidelines on the proportion of invited women. We find that the average proportion of invited women is comparable (conferences), significantly lower (specialized courses), or significantly higher (congress symposia) than the current baseline (32% women). It is positively correlated to the proportion of women among the organizers, and it is on average higher for events whose organizers considered gender when choosing speakers than for those whose organizers did not. To investigate the impact of Equal Opportunity guidelines, we then collected longitudinal data on the proportion of invited women at two series of congresses, covering the 2001–2017 period. The proportion of invited women is higher when Equal Opportunity guidelines are announced. Encouraging women to sit on organizing committees of scientific events, and the establishment of visible Equal Opportunity guidelines, thus could be ways to ensure higher number of invited female speakers in the future. Our results suggest that change, if desired, requires deliberate actions.


A. Courses dataset
The Courses dataset contains 88 events identified as Courses; the distribution of the proportions of invited female speakers for these events is shown on Fig. S3c. The average proportion of female speakers across the different Courses (estimated at 27%) is marginally lower than the estimated baseline (GLM, event vs. society data, χ 2 1 = 5.4, p = 0.020).
Yet again, we find a significant, positive effect of the proportion of women among the organizers on the proportion of invited female speakers ( Fig. S5; GLMM, proportion of female organizers; χ 2 1 = 8.3, p = 0.0039).
Of the 88 Course organizers we emailed, 53 filled in our questionnaire. In contrast to the Conference and Congress symposia dataset, the propensity of organizers to answer the questionnaire was not affected by the proportion of invited female speakers. Moreover, when we restrict the data to events for which a reply was received, none of the tested factors had an effect on the proportion of invited female speakers.

B.1. ESEB, SMBE and Evolution 2017 SMBE
The final decision on the selection of symposia, invited and contributed talks will be made jointly by the LOC and International Advisory Board. Criteria will include quality of the proposals, breath of interest to SMBE membership, and representation of the diversity of SMBE membership among speakers.

ESEB
The organizers of ESEB 2017 [. . . ] wish to ensure that symposia selected for the meeting in Groningen draw participants (both invited and those selected for inclusion when abstracts are reviewed) as broadly as possible to reflect the full research strengths of the fields represented. We therefore encourage symposium organizers to account for potential implicit biases when selecting among abstract submissions.

Evolution -SSE
All organizers of the SSE Spotlight Sessions were explicitly asked via email to consider speaker diversity (Aneil Agrawal, pers. comm..) (2) The organizers of ESEB 2017 [. . . ] wish to ensure that symposia selected for the meeting in Groningen draw participants (both invited and those selected for inclusion when abstracts are reviewed) as broadly as possible to reflect the full research strengths of the fields represented.  (7) 2014-May, Brazil EVOLUTION2015 SymposiumProposals 2016 Yes (7) 2015-June, SymposiumProposals EvolutionMeeting Austin2016 2017 Yes (7) 2016-May, SSE 2017 SymposiumProposals

SSE symposia
The Council particularly encourages proposals that include speakers from groups traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia, e.g., postdoctoral research associates and new assistant professors, investigators from outside North America, women, and members of racial or ethnic minorities.

(5)
The Council particularly encourages proposals that include young investigators and others traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia.

(6)
The Council particularly encourages proposals that include women, younger investigators and others traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia.

(7)
In evaluating proposals, SSE Council seriously considers the diversity of participants as a major qualification. Symposium organizers are expected to take into account gender, seniority, nationality, and other aspects traditionally underrepresented in Society symposia when preparing proposals.

Supplementary Figures
Number of ads  You can check the list of names that we used to compile the numbers.
We are aware that women may decline invitations more often than men do, but we want to focus on the eventual proportion of female speakers.
Q0 Are these numbers correct?

Q5
The raw data of the study will be shared on the digital repository Dryad. Do you accept your replies to Questions Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4 to be included in the analysis and hence shared on Dryad? (if not, we will not be able to use these replies in our