POLICIES
SMBE POLICIES
Policy on Harassment, Discrimination and Liability
SMBE23 attendees are expected to adhere to SMBE's Code of Conduct. SMBE is dedicated to providing a safe, hospitable, and productive environment for all members. Accordingly, SMBE prohibits all forms of discrimination and harassment (including among members, volunteers, and staff) in all Society activities, including events (online or in person), journal correspondence, social media, etc). Behaviour that undermines the integrity of intellectual discourse is an impediment to scientific progress and will not be tolerated. Unacceptable treatment of others includes (but is not limited to) harassment, stalking, belittling, discrimination, bullying/intimidation, assault, trolling, and retaliation (see above link for descriptions). Any misconduct on the basis of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, physical appearance, race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, or other descriptive categories will not be tolerated. If you need to report an incident, please contact our Safety Officer, Paula Brantner, at safeconferences@gmail.com or use this reporting form: bit.ly/SMBE23CoCReport.
SMBE Allies
At SMBE 2023 in Ferrara next week, you may notice that some attendees are designated with a ribbon that reflects their status as SMBE Allies. SMBE Allies have been trained to offer support to SMBE 2023 Annual Meeting participants who are targets of, or who witness, inappropriate behavior which potentially violates the SMBE Code of Conduct. SMBE Allies are trained to listen, help targets or witnesses deal with what has happened, and to inform them of their options, including whether to report the conduct. SMBE Allies will not participate in any aspect of investigating reports or sanctioning. SMBE Allies also commit to creating safe spaces at the meeting by serving as active bystanders.
Broadcasting Policy
The SMBE Annual Meeting supports the communication and discussion of science. Information presented at the Meeting (in oral or poster format) may be reported and discussed by attendees and science writers via blogs, social media, or other formats, unless any of the authors requests otherwise. We do request that communications are respectful and do not directly reproduce visual materials (e.g., no posting of photos of slides or posters) unless permission is obtained from the presenter or if they have already made this information freely available in an open-source forum. If a presenter does not want information from his/her presentation to be photographed at all, or broadcast, they should make this clear in their talk/poster and we ask that attendees respect this. If you have questions or concerns about this policy, or would like to report an abuse of it, please contact any member of the Local Organizing Committee or email Lulu Stader at smbe.contact@gmail.com.