EDI good practice for organising events
EDI considerations are important for event planning. Prioritising EDI helps you to meet your legal responsibilities and enriches your events by ensuring that a diverse set of voices, insights, perspectives and experiences are heard.
On this page you can find advice, guidance and good practice examples related to EDI events, including policies and how you can make your events inclusive and accessible for everyone.
This month's recommended resource for organising events
This month our recommended EDI event resource is a video conversation looking at how to increase the accessibility of conferences, both online and in-person, for those with disabilities. It provides some really useful insights from those with lived experience of trying to organise accessible conferences online and in person and the challenges faced by those with lived experience of disability.
Inclusive events guidance
These resources provide advice and guidance to help create and host inclusive events. Use the left column below to change categories. See the right column for a summary and link to each resource.
Here you will find resources to help create and host inclusive events. See below for a breakdown of each resource.
The Diversity and Inclusion in Scientific Computing (DISC) cookbook
This is intended as a resource for organisers of conferences and events to support and encourage diversity and inclusion. Although its main target is the US tech industry, the majority of the content provides general suggestions for planning inclusive conferences. It focusses specifically on plans, decisions, and actions organisers can take to produce and manage a more diverse and inclusive event.
Organising an inclusive conference
This dedicated webpage from the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) hosts a collation of readings, guidance and resources on this broad theme to raise awareness, inform discussion, and catalyse action.
All welcome – a guide to inclusive, accessible and sustainable events
This guide draws on examples of good practice from across the higher education sector and beyond, to support those who are involved in organising, hosting and participating in events. These can be meetings, workshops, or conferences, either online or in person. In addition, it has a good list of further resources and a useful appendix on neurodiversity.
Here you will find resources to help create and host inclusive events, taking into consideration the needs of particular characteristics and groups. See below for a breakdown of each resource.
Engaging with disabled people – an event planning guide
While this was produced specifically with the intention of planning an engagement event involving disabled people, it does have some very good advice on planning an event with disabled contributors/attendees. It also includes a facilitators guide, which provides a briefing for the chairperson and presenters, a useful glossary of alternative formats and a guide to hearing enhancement systems.
Best practice guide – developing inclusive conferences
A practical guide on creating and running inclusive conferences for event organisers, drawing on examples of good practice from across the university sector and beyond. This guide primarily focusses on gender, but it also makes recommendations on other aspects of inclusivity and diversity, such as ethnicity, religion and disability.
Creating inclusive conferences for academics with caring responsibilities – guidance for conference organisers
This briefing gives an overview of findings from a small-scale, exploratory study that looked at the impact of caring responsibilities on academics’ participation in conferences. It presents recommendations for how conference organisers can be more accommodating towards these attendees.
The below video conversation looks at increasing the accessibility of conferences, both online and in-person, for those with disabilities. Simon Holt from Elsevier, who is sight-impaired, and Erin Osborne from Wiley, who has limited physical mobility, talk with Mark Carden of R2R and Violaine Iglesias, Cadmore Media. This video provides some really useful insights from those with lived experience of trying to organise accessible conferences online and in person and the challenges faced by those with lived experience of disability.
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Towards conferences accessibility - a conversation
EDI policies on events
These resources provide examples of EDI policies for events. Use the left column below to change categories. See the right column for a summary and link to each resource.
Here you will find examples of EDI policies for events to help you design your own. See below for a breakdown of each resource.
Equality and diversity in Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) conferences
This document sets out specific guidance for implementing the SLSA Equality and Diversity Policy aimed at conference organisers, stream convenors and delegates.
Imperial College conference policy
Imperial College’s conference policy takes active steps to promote EDI at conferences that are associated with the College. The policy document is divided into two parts: (a) a code of conduct and (b) guidance on how to incorporate considerations of EDI in conference planning and participation. While the document is aimed at members of the College community, it provides a good example of how EDI can be incorporated into your conference policies.