ICES is committed to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), within its community and across marine science. For example, the ICES Gender Equality Plan approved in 2022 embraces this promise. The Gender Equality Plan commits ICES to embedding DEI principles into its governance, working structures, and programs to ensure ICES is a place where everyone can thrive and produce the best knowledge for sustainable seas. One of the initiatives recommended in the Gender Equality Plan is ensuring that DEI is accounted for in research and project planning: ‘New projects and research should employ available tools to critically evaluate if appropriate considerations are accounted for throughout the project life-cycle.’ The session aims to advance this recommendation but also seeks to expand on new working practices to support ICES working groups and overall practices.
The intention is to ensure DEI can be embedded into the research and project-life cycle of ICES expert groups and technical workshops. This question will first be explored with presentations from the Secretariat and chair of the Operational DEI Group. This will be followed by case studies of best practices as well as challenges from chairs of expert groups. The aim is to share ideas and collect innovative approaches to the questions of how to sustainably embed DEI principles into research and how to measure progress. For example, some groups are adding DEI ToR to their resolutions while others are utilising DEI tools such as GenderWave. We seek contributions that will advance our understanding, refresh existing challenges, and raise thought provoking ideas about DEI and ICES science. The report from the session will present distilled messages, which will be used to inform ICES community and best practice to support our ways of working.
