Leveraging collective impact to characterize and identify solutions to cultural challenges within scientific societies

Abstract

A consortium of scientific societies recently identified challenges to inclusivity within the biology communities they represent. Specifically, societies encounter difficulties collecting member demographic data effectively, integrating scientists at transitional career stages, and diversifying their leadership. In response, the Leveraging, Enhancing, and Developing Biology (LED-BIO) research coordination network (NSF 2134725) organized two meetings at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA to gather stakeholders and employ top-down and bottom-up organizational approaches to address these challenges. These meetings included Town Hall and Think Tank events to facilitate open dialogue and gather feedback on policies and programs from national organizations in attendance. These discussions provided valuable insights into the barriers societies face and the available resources and interventions societies use to promote inclusivity. This article uses the LED-BIO research coordination network as a case study to discuss the Town Hall-Think Tank-Consensus Building (TTC) methodology for advancing inclusive excellence in scientific communities.

Keywords: career transitions; culture change; demographic data collection; inclusive leadership; scientific societies.

Figure 1.

The TTC meeting structure and dynamics. Each day of the meeting is broken into three phases, in which subject matter experts with scholarly and lived experience are first recruited to join the interested community members during a town hall and continue the conversation during a think tank deep dive on the topic of interest, followed by consensus-building sessions. Throughout the three phases, moderators ensure the discussion remains on target, and notetakers are recruited to record the outcomes of the discussion. The ultimate goal is to be able to disseminate the findings within the broader community.

Figure 2.

A summary of the underlying barriers to inclusivity in scientific societies and the key action areas identified at the 2022 LED-BIO RCN meeting.

Figure 3.

LED-BIO's framework for equitable membership data collection. Each step around the cycle contributes to the work of improving the society culture. In this model, data collection is part of an iterative process where each step around the cycle contributes to the work of improving society culture. The cyclic nature of the framework highlights the fact that there will always be more we can do and iterate to ensure that all members feel that they have a home in the society.

Figure 4.

LED-BIO's framework for inclusive leadership. Three types of solutions were identified by the RCN as contributing to an inclusive leadership culture, those that focus on the individual, the organization, and ensuring accountability through transparency.

Figure 5.

LED-BIO's call for action for STEM societies to collaboratively catalyze inclusive cultural change. To find innovative ways to build inclusive scientific environments and communities, societies can sustain interactions to share resources, including examples of what the operationalization of inclusive practices looks like, and copilot or research new paradigms.