Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

The DESC is committed to actively fostering an equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment. These considerations permeate the collaboration at all levels of leadership and management, and from working group telecons to collaboration meetings.

To help continuously promote these goals, the DESC is equipped with a dedicated Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee, and, as a member of the Rubin Observatory Science Collaboration Federation, will be represented on the Federation’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council.

The DESC Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee

As described in the Governance Plan, the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee is charged by the Collaboration Council to proactively ensure that the collaboration is fostering an inclusive environment while promoting equity and diversity within the collaboration. The full charge of the Committee, ratified and maintained by the Collaboration Council is detailed below.

Collaboration members can find more details, contact information, and resources on the internal Confluence page.

Detailed charge of the EDI Committee

As outlined in the Governance Plan, the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee is charged with three sets of activities:

• Monitoring and reporting: The EDI Committee will identify resources to support, and experts to conduct, climate surveys, record and analyze data, track demographics and statistics, and report findings to the Collaboration. Demographic statistics include but are not limited to the composition of the Collaboration as a whole, its Management Team and leadership (including WG co-conveners), the Council, and other collaboration entities.

• Education of the collaboration: The EDI Committee will collate resources and engage with external expertise to communicate EDI-enhancing actions and best practices (e.g., for leadership selection) to the Collaboration, so that Collaboration members and the Collaboration as a whole can make informed decisions with EDI-related considerations in mind.

• Recommendations: The EDI Committee will make recommendations of collaboration practices and policies to the Council and/or the Management Team. The EDI Committee will solicit and record the responses and/or implementations that follow its recommendations.