What is an ABCD Conference approach?
The ABCD Conference format aims to change how conferences, workshops and other meetings can be organised to focus on global inclusivity while minimizing our carbon footprint. We therefore focus on inviting speakers in line with ABCD: All continents, gender Balance, promoting low Carbon transport and from Diverse backgrounds. Our ideas have recently been published in a Comment Article in Nature Ecology & Evolution (here)
In brief, the aim of the ABCD format is to cover:
- All continents: Invite similar numbers of speakers from all continents will permit a global perspective and make it integral to our research.
- Gender Balance: aim for a gender balance panel
- Low Carbon transport: ask speakers not to fly to the meeting but to attend either by low carbon emission transport or by presenting via video link or through pre-recorded presentation to be screened during the session.
- Diverse backgrounds: explicitly invite scientists from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds as this will widen the horizon for scientific exchange and combat inequity in science.
We would like to further promote the ABCD approach through this website, our related twitter channel, and the hashtag #ABCD_conference