Gender and early career status: variables of participation at an international marine science conference

Abstract

Conference participation is an important part of academic practice and contributes to building scientific careers. Investigating demographic differences in conference participation may reveal factors contributing to the continued under-representation of women in marine and ocean science. To explore the gender and career stage dimensions of participation in an international marine science conference, preferences of presentation type (oral/poster) as well as acceptance and rejection decisions were investigated using 5-years of data (2015–2019) from an International Marine Science Conference. It was found that early career scientists were more likely to be women, while established scientists were more likely to be men. Although overall, gender did not show a significant effect on the decisions to “downgrade” requests for oral presentations to poster presentations, early career scientists were significantly more likely to be downgraded than established scientists. Given that more women were often early career scientists, more women than men had their presentations downgraded. Other indicators and evidence from conference prize-giving and recognition awards point to a gender gap remaining at senior levels, highlighting the need for further actions as well as monitoring and researching conference participation from a gender perspective.

Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion in interdisciplinary marine science

“…The challenges of interdisciplinary research may be even more substantial for ECRs from minoritised groups 6,46 , as they already face institutional biases and structural barriers within academic and research institutions in marine science. This is due to intersecting systems of oppression and privilege, and legacies of colonialism in marine science, affecting multiple social identities such as gender 9,47 , nationality 48 , ethnicity 49 , sexual identity, disability, economic class, and age 50 . This can result in interlocking systems of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and classism at the macro-social structural level 51,52 .…”

“…Diversity is the presence of differences that may include race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socioeconom Marine science in general has been shown to fall short of considering DEI 6,7 , with recent studies highlighting persistent imbalances related to gender equity [8][9][10] , cultural representation, and language (i.e., English) dominance of global minority institutions [11][12][13] , the cost of leading on and participating in science 14 , senseof-belonging 15 , and neurodiversity 16 , among other issues 17 . While there has been limited focus on the status of DEI in interdisciplinary marine research and the extent to which the field succeeds in bringing together diverse individuals and groups, we theorise that DEI issues, as well as the benefits of DEI, might be even greater in this field.…”