ERC Annual Conference 2023: Research on Diversity & Diversity in Frontier Research
Background
There is growing awareness of the need to acknowledge and accommodate diversity in our societies and in science. To fully understand the world we live in and to foster inclusive and fair societies, we need to take into account the plurality of perspectives and life experiences that exist. In the same vein, for science to be excellent, research designs must be able to capture and represent the diversity of the phenomena that are studied. Research that overlooks this risks leading to partial, misrepresentative or inaccurate results and to the misapplication of its findings. Likewise, technological applications are likely to benefit greatly from the participation of people with different backgrounds and needs to ensure a broad and inclusive application and use of these.
Aim
This workshop will showcase frontier research projects funded by the ERC that both study diversity in society and that exemplify the importance of taking diversity into account in research designs.
Structure
A keynote that will talk about shifting perceptions about females in evolutionary science.
The first session will address the importance of accommodating diversity in health research. It is paramount that health research considers diversity in its research designs and studies. Participants in health research must reflect the plurality of the population, taking into account ethnicity, gender, age, identity, socioeconomic status, etc. If this is not done, it can have serious ethical and medical consequences as it impedes the ability to generalise study results and ensure effective treatment and disease prevention for all. The second session will focus on diversity from a technological and legal perspective. The session will include research projects inquiring into bias in AI, accessibility of public spaces for people with diverse bodily, mind or life circumstances as well as research on how technology can assist people with different life experiences and realities. The third session will focus on how we perceive diversity and the relativity of the concept of ‘diversity’ versus ‘normality’. The session will present research on gender identities, norms and sexual orientation, neuro-diversity as well as anthropological, sociological and social-psychological studies on of how people react to diversity and how to include diversity into research design.
The workshop will conclude with a roundtable discussion on the importance of diversity in research and challenges related to its implementation.