Diversity & Inclusivity Events at the 2022 OHBM Annual Meeting: If you want to go far, go together

By Valentina Borghesani, Lucina Uddin, Kangjoo Lee, Aman Badwhar & Rosanna Olsen

On behalf of the OHBM Diversity & Inclusivity Committee

The last two years have brought new challenges for the members of our global OHBM community. In particular, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted and exacerbated existing inequities in having access to healthcare, including vaccines. During this time, we have also witnessed persistent racial and/or ethnocultural discrimination, which continues to affect members of our Society around the globe. Finally, while our recent survey indicated that many of our members have reported positive changes that support Diversity and Inclusivity at OHBM in the past two years, there is still a major lack of geographical representation within our Council and at our annual meeting. We, the OHBM Diversity & Inclusivity Committee, will continue to shine a light on these issues by discussing existing barriers and proposing solutions at the OHBM meeting Diversity Symposium and Roundtable events. We also continue to engage the “scientists of the future” around the world in our 2nd annual multilingual Kids Live Review (virtual) events.

The 4th annual DIC Symposium: The Asian perspective

This year we will host a panel discussion from the Asian perspective on the effects of social, cultural, and language barriers on inclusivity at OHBM. We are thrilled that Bharat Biswal (country of origin: India), Kangjoo Lee (country of origin: South Korea), Natasha Rajah (country of origin: Sri Lanka), Hiromasa Takemura (country of origin: Japan), and Chao-Gan Yan (country of origin: China) will be joining us for this first-time-ever event (Fig.1). The in-person panel will take place as an afternoon symposium on Monday June 20th (14.15 - 15.30 GMT+1, Lomond Auditorium), but don’t worry if you can’t make it! We’ll also have a pre-recorded version available online.

Fig.1. The 4th annual DIC Symposium will be a panel discussion on the Asian perspective on the effects of social, cultural, and language barriers on inclusivity at OHBM with Bharat Biswal (country of origin: India), Kangjoo Lee (country of origin: South Korea), Natasha Rajah (country of origin: Sri Lanka), Hiromasa Takemura (country of origin: Japan), and Chao-Gan Yan (country of origin: China). Don’t worry if you miss the in-person event, the pre-recorded version of the DIC Symposium will be available!

The 3rd edition of the Kids Live Review: Even more multilingual

We are excited to continue our multilingual Kids Live Review events this year, boosted by the heightened interest within the OHBM community and beyond! Did you miss last year’s reviews? No worries, you can still enjoy the pre-recorded videos in this playlist. This year we are featuring eight languages: children speaking English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish will be able to act as reviewers for the latest journal publications presented by multilingual OHBM-member volunteers (Fig.2).

Whether in school with their teachers or at home with their parents, kids will be able to watch the prerecorded talk in their native language with subtitles. Next, during our annual meeting, they will attend the virtual live Q&A session and directly ask questions to the presenters, learning where we are at the forefront of human brain mapping. Interested? Register here and help us spread the word! Want a sneak-peak? Here you can find this year's playlist!

This monumental effort requires a full team of volunteers, some OHBM members, others educators or teachers - in alphabetical order they are: Gifty Asare, Mary Akuamoah-Boateng, Giulia Baracchini, Anna Billot, Alejandro Blenkmann, Valentina Borghesani, Yi Du, Benedetta Franceschiello, Rahul Gaurav, Takemura Hiromasa, Julia Kam, Kangjoo Lee, Alejandra Lopez, Renan Matsuda, Emma Massy, Yasuyo Minagawa, Rosanna Olsen, Diego Ortuzar, Maira Pinto, Alessandra Rampini, Hayoung Song, Victor Souza, Yuri Terasawa, Ning Yang, Kwangsun Yoo. We all come together united by the desire to bring the latest scientific output of our community to the bright, curious, young minds of future scientists!

Fig.2. The 3rd edition of the Kids Live Review will be enjoyed by children speaking eight languages: English, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish.

The 2nd RoundTable Discussion: Best practices for promoting diversity and inclusivity across OHBM organizations

If there is one thing OHBM excels at, it’s developing Best Practices! Across multiple special interest groups within the society, several exciting initiatives have emerged over the past years as we’ve worked to express the values of diversity and inclusivity in all of our activities. In addition to the efforts of the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee, there are programs, policies, and activities that are emerging from the creative minds of individuals involved in organizations across OHBM. In this first-ever meeting amongst leaders of the Diversity and Inclusivity Committee, Student-Postdoc SIG, Open Science SIG, SEA-SIG, BrainArt SIG, and OHBM Chapters, we will discuss what we’ve learned in terms of best practices for promoting diversity and inclusivity (Fig.3). This meeting will help us develop a roadmap to work more synergistically towards our common goals of making OHBM a welcoming place for our diverse global membership. See you on Tuesday June 21st (12.30 - 13.30 GMT+1, Alsh room).

Fig.3. The 2nd RoundTable Discussion hosted by the DIC will see all OHBM SIGs and Chapters coming together to discuss best practices for promoting diversity and inclusivity.

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See you all in Glasgow and/or online!