Towards Other Earths III: The Planet-Star connection
17-21 July 2023, Porto, Portugal

IA code of conduct for events

The Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço (IA) is committed to creating a work environment that is safe, professional and of mutual trust, where diversity and inclusion are valued, and everyone is entitled to be treated with courtesy and respect. IA commits to making conferences, workshops, and all associated activities productive and enjoyable for everyone, and it will not tolerate harassment of participants in any form.

Please follow these guidelines:

1. Behave professionally. Harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary comments or jokes are not appropriate. Harassment includes sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, sexual attention or innuendo, deliberate intimidation, stalking, and photography or recording of an individual without consent. It also includes offensive comments related to individual characteristics, for example, age, gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, race, nationality or religion.

2. All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual or sexist language and imagery are not appropriate.

3. Be respectful and do not insult or put down other attendees or facilitators of the event. Critique ideas, not people.

4. Should a participant witness events of bullying, harassment or aggression, we recommend that they approach the affected person to show support and check how they are. The witness may also suggest to the affected person to report the inappropriate behaviour. However, it is up to the affected person alone to decide whether or not they wish to report it.

5. If participants wish to share photos of a speaker on social media, we strongly recommend that they first get the speaker’s permission. Participants may share the contents of talks/slides via social media unless speakers have explicitly asked for specific details/slides not to be shared.

Each Local Organising Committee has at least two members who are designated as the contact points for all matters related to this code. Participants can report any violation of these guidelines to these designates in confidence. If asked to stop inappropriate behaviour participants are expected to comply immediately and, in serious cases, may be asked to leave the event without a refund. IA will not tolerate retaliation against anyone reporting violations of this code of conduct, nor false and malicious misuse of this code to damage the reputation of another.

Thank you for helping to make IA events welcoming for all.

Acknowledgements: This code of conduct was adapted from the Code of Conduct for ESO Workshops & Conferences (https://www.eso.org/sci/meetings/2018/tcl2018/code.html), which is based on the London Code of Conduct (by A. Pontzen and H. Peiris), derived from original Creative Commons documents by PyCon and Geek Feminism. It is released under a CC-Zero licence for reuse. To help track people's improvements and best practices, please retain this acknowledgement, and log your re-use or modification of this policy at https://github.com/apontzen/london_cc.