INTRODUCTION

LED-BIO brings together a collaborative network of experts to identify evidence-based inclusion strategies to help scientific societies to tackle the following three challenges.

• Collect membership demographics
• Integrate scientists in transitional career stages
• Diversify leadership ranks

Overall Goal: LED-BIO aims to crowdsource solutions to persistent challenges that frequently undermine diversity efforts within scientific societies and to broadly share this information for the benefit of all scientific communities.

Project Abstract: Each field in the sciences has historically been represented by its own scientific society, bringing together individual researchers for regular meetings where they can network, share discoveries, and collaborate. While it is rare for multiple distinct scientific societies to interact, they often perform similar functions, such as promoting the professional development of their members and promoting diversity among the next generation of researchers in their respective fields. We have established a collaborative network of experts to identify evidence-based inclusion strategies to accomplish the following: (1) collect consistent demographic data of society memberships, (2) better integrate scientists in transitional career stages into scientific society activities, and (3) diversify the ranks of scientific society leaders. By fulfilling these goals, this project aims to overcome persistent challenges that frequently undermine diversity efforts within independent communities of scientists and to broadly share this information for the benefit of all scientific communities. This project is an extension of the work of the Alliance to Catalyze Change for STEM Success (ACCESS), and its member societies in the life sciences (the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the American Society for Pharmaceutical and Experimental Therapeutics, the Endocrine Society, and the Biophysical Society), joined by the Quality Education for Minorities Network, the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, and the NSF INCLUDES Aspire Alliance. We share the progress made during the first year of the three-year grant.

LED-BIO is a collaborative effort in response to the LEAPS NSF solicitation. It engages the Alliance to Catalyze Change for Equity in STEM Success (ACCESS, NSF1744098) and its member societies in the life sciences (the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology--ASBMB, the American Society for Cell Biology--ASCB, the American Society for Pharmaceutical and Experimental Therapeutics--ASPET, the Endocrine Society--ES, and the Biophysical Society--BPS), the Quality Education for Minorities (QEM) Network (NSF 1649095, 2032781,1818635, 2035321, 1842726), the Marine Biological Laboratories at Woods Hole (MBL), and the Aspire Alliance (NSF 1834518, 1834522, 1834510, 1834513, 1834526, 1834521). 

Scientific societies have sought to foster workforce diversity by supporting professional development (PD) programming for graduate, postdoctoral, and junior faculty trainees in academia (Segarra et al., 2017; Segarra et al., 2020a). These programs have encountered several persistent challenges that contribute to systemic inequities in scientific environments and undermine inclusivity efforts. Despite these setbacks, scientific societies remain perfectly positioned to act as nuclei for the dissemination of solutions for scientific communities to meet these challenges successfully. For example, scientific societies regularly organize national and international meetings that gather individuals with synergistic scholarly interests, creating unique and powerful opportunities for the advancement of a particular discipline of knowledge. In this way, societies serve as communities of practice (CoPs; Wenger et al., 2002) that transcend geographical barriers to facilitate information exchange, networking, and collaboration among more localized academic or industry-based scientific communities. Moreover, these organizations often set the standards for their discipline, establishing the requirements for best practices in data collection, certification, publishing, and culture. Read more...

Culture and language are intricately connected. The terminology and vocabulary that we use to communicate provide insights into cultural values and experiences. For this reason, if as scientific disciplines, we want to foster cultures that are inclusive with climates that welcome individuals from a variety of backgrounds and lived experiences, we should be intentional about the terms and expressions that we use to center these ideals.

In this document we use the term Historically Excluded Persons (HEP). HEP are individuals belonging to any group of people that has been historically excluded from STEM. Because of their exclusion, the representation of HEP in STEM disciplines is smaller than their representation in the United States population. For example, women, members of minority racial and ethnic groups (Black/African-American, Hispanic/Latino, Native American or Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, and other Pacific Islanders), persons with disabilities, and low-income persons are all considered HEP in STEM fields (National Science Foundation, 2019; National Institutes of Health, n.d.).