EDIG’s first event, our 2020 conference, was fully virtual and free to watch. While conference videos are available on our YouTube channel, the conference agenda is shown below. To help us better understand the challenges faced by many people in the geoscience community and plan the inaugural EDIG conference, we ran a global survey asking people about their experiences (or lack of) with equality, diversity, and inclusion related topics. We used the results of this survey to help us structure our event that ran over the 15/16th of December 2020.
The conference had 3 sessions (talks and panel discussions) and a workshop focusing on unconscious bias run by Diverse Matters, run over 2 days. EDIG’s inaugural conference was supported by 14 partners, helping to promote and give feedback on plans, with the workshop sponsored by iCRAG and the Institute of Geologists of Ireland (IGI).
The conference programme is outlined below and recordings of most talks and discussions are available on our YouTube channel, accessible here
EDIG Conference Programme
The schedule of talks for Session 1 are listed below (times are shown in GMT).
- 12:00 pm. Launch of the EDIG conference (Prof. Murray Hitzman).
- 12:05 pm. Background to EDIG: Who we are (Aileen Doran).
- 12:15 pm. EDIG survey results summary (Dr. Jess Franklin).
- 12:30 pm. Introduction to session 1 (Dr. Fergus McAuliffe)
- 12:40 pm. Geoscience and the questions of inclusivity: A historical perspective (Prof. Pratik Chakrabarti).
- 12:55 pm. 50 years in geo. How far we’ve come & how far we need to go (Prof. Suzanne O’Connell).
- 1:10 pm. Under-represented, not rare: We are here (Dr. Hendratta Ali).
- 1:25 pm. Translating lived experiences and why this matters (Nicole Doucette).
- 1:40 pm. Stronger together (title to be confirmed) (Dr. Rocío Caballero-Gill).
- 1:55 pm. Panel discussion.
- 2:30 pm. End of session 1.
The schedule of talks for Session 2 are listed below (times are shown in GMT).
- 3:00 pm. Introduction to session 2 (Hazel Gibson).
- 3:10 pm. Challenging inappropriate workplace behaviours as allies & bystanders for a safe, respectful & inclusive workplaces (Susan Lomas).
- 3:20 pm. Race and racism: underrepresented groups in geoscience (Dr. Kuheli Dutt).
- 3:30 pm. Disability/ableism including mental health (Martin Griffin).
- 3:40 pm. Navigating and succeeding in rocky spaces with a brown face (Dr. Anjana Khatwa).
- 3:50 pm. Socio-economic status & mental health (Dr. Brooke Johnson).
- 4:00 pm. LGBTQ+ (Dr Craig Poku)
- 4:10 pm. Intersectionality of challenges (title to be confirmed) (Alejandra Gomez Correa).
- 4:20 pm. Panel discussion.
- 5:00 pm. End of session 2.
The schedule of talks for Session 3 are listed below (times are shown in GMT).
- 12:00 pm. EDIG Day 2 introduction (Dr. Anna Bidgood).
- 12:10 pm. Introduction by session chair (Dr. Sarah Gordon).
- 12:20 pm. Early career professional: Shaping the future of geoscience (Lucy Crane).
- 12:30 pm. Inclusive academia: A pipeline to industry (Prof. Ben Mapani).
- 12:40 pm. Reporting (Dimitra Christakou).
- 12:50 pm. An audit for action: BAME representation in the geosciences (Ben Fernando).
- 1:00 pm. Six simple steps to make fieldwork more accessible and inclusive (Anya Lawrence).
- 1:10 pm. Panel discussion.
- 2:00 pm. End of conference wrap up and future steps closing remarks (Aileen Doran).
Workship: Unconscious Bias
This workshop was sponsored by the IGI and iCRAG, and was structured using the results of the EDIG survey. The workshop was run by Diverse Matters on behalf of EDIG.