Challenging diversity in favour of equity

This June, I attended the 71st Lindau Nobel laureate meeting. Each year, the conference brings together young scientists from all over the world with Nobel laureates of a dedicated discipline, chemistry in this case. Many of them experienced the conference as one of the most diverse they ever attended. Indeed, many attendants belonged to structurally marginalised groups in science, such as People of Colour, people from the Global South or LGBTQ+ people.

However, diversity did not go far beyond the selection of participants. The overall setting, statements made in discussions and the selection of speakers failed to promote inclusion. These issues were raised during a panel discussion on the last day on the ‘Diversity challenge’, evoking questions about diversity in science in general.

Diversity has been a buzzword in the past couple of years and I appreciate the broader awareness about the injustice of discrimination. Indeed, the scientific community started to realise that scientists and, hence, science can be biased, opposing the long-standing notion of science as a purely factual, objective discipline. Biases are transmitted into the selection of study groups, the interpretation of results or hiring practices. Biased facial recognition technology, inherited from its mostly white, young male programmers is a common example.