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Ad hoc Committee on Diversity (CoD)

In the last years, there has been a considerable increase of attention devoted worldwide to the issues of diversity and inclusion. Many institutions and organizations have recognized the need to re-assess their relationship to these issues. Indeed, the IMU itself has given increased attention to these in recent years. This has been combined with an increased consideration of conflicts of interest and implicit biases. These changes have certainly improved the operations of the IMU.

To build on this further, the Executive Committee (EC) of the IMU decided in 2020 to create an ad hoc committee called the Committee on Diversity (CoD) - with a limited term to the end of 2022 - to offer the IMU advice regarding diversity and inclusion. The CoD gave a report on its initial findings at the IMU General Assembly 2022 and also developed a questionnaire that was used in the exit poll for the virtual ICM 2022.

The CoD has now been re-established for the 2023-2026 term in order to continue its work, and is again charged with the task of providing advice on how the IMU can improve its actions regarding diversity and inclusion. Specifically, the CoD should

  1. provide an assessment on how the IMU performs regarding diversity and inclusion;
  2. offer advice on how the IMU can improve its activities regarding diversity and inclusion in its activities;
  3. develop a questionnaire to be distributed among participants at ICM 2026, assess the results of the questionnaire, and produce a report to the EC about its findings;
  4. make recommendations to the IMU on how the IMU can advise and help its members regarding diversity and inclusion. In particular, the CoD should provide a “best practice” document for the mathematical community to be distributed to the Adhering Organizations after approval by the EC.

The CoD is receptive to advice and proposals from mathematicians worldwide.

The chair of the CoD is Elena Vázquez-Abal (Spain), and her email address for this is chair@cod.mathunion.org. Other members are

Edy Tri Baskoro (Indonesia)
Robert Bryant (USA)
Sophie Dabo-Niang (France/Senegal)
Edray Goins (USA)
Anjum Halai (Pakistan)
Gugu Moreira (Brazil)
Philibert Nang (Gabon)
Ngô Bảo Châu (USA/Vietnam)

The IMU EC liaison for CoD is Tatiana Toro (USA/Colombia)