Conferences for humans
From 2022 to 2025, we (the authors) comprised a Collaborative Research Group (CRG) within the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences (PIMS). Our CRG began in the shadow of COVID-19, a time that underscored (among other things) the essential need to centre human experiences—security, connection, and belonging—in any gathering. Over the three years of our CRG, we organized multiple scientific events of varying size (50–100 participants) in a hybrid format. At first we were scrambling just to get things organized on time, but by the end we had the freedom and mental space to think more deeply about the goals and purposes of conference organization. In doing so, we found ourselves more able to articulate how planning scientific events is more than simply scheduling talks—we wanted to prioritize the human participants themselves. Our guiding principle became:
A conference should significantly benefit the careers of as many people as possible, and the field should significantly benefit from as many people as possible.
Our motivation was thus to grow both the mathematical community and the discipline itself, while fostering the most positive human experience we could. This article is a description of how we went about this goal. We want to highlight the conceptual themes of our event planning, mentioning specifics only to amplify the main ideas. However, we do include an Appendix with links to our event websites and related content, for anybody who is interested in more details.
We began by identifying the intended impact, the target audiences, and the appropriate formats—one launch event to describe the CRG’s activities, one summer school and group research workshop, and three more traditional conference-style events. These decisions shaped our choices around location and budget, which we refined as practical constraints emerged. Given the considerable environmental, financial, human, and logistical resources these events require, we felt a responsibility to ensure they created meaningful value, especially for early-career researchers and members of equity-seeking groups.
Moreover, we have seen that judgmental or hostile environments undermine our ability to learn, to ques- tion, and to create. Such spaces can even drive people out of the field entirely. This recognition pushed us to reflect on what makes an environment inclusive and welcoming, and to integrate those values into every stage of the planning process. We designed our registration process, communication, and event structures with the goal of enabling participants to feel included, collaborate freely, and focus on the event content.
Just as identifying the theorems we want to prove determines which lemmas must come first, we began by identifying the central theme we wanted each event to explore and then built a process around that theme. The foundations lay in planning, communication, and logistics, while the implementation prioritized the human experience of the participants. We are reflecting on these aspects here, not as an isolated checklist or a preachy set of instructions, but rather as examples of the kinds of people-focused outcomes we believe can be achieved with clear intention. By articulating the philosophy that guided our approach, and offering some of our conclusions and the choices that followed from them, we hope that other mathematicians might find our experiences thought-provoking, helpful, and empowering as they design their own inclusive events.
Planning with intention
After establishing event location and initial funding, the key preparatory steps concerned publicizing the event and its registration form and reviewing the resulting responses. We strove to bring each event to the attention of as many people as possible who could benefit from its theme, and to describe how we could provide people with the means to attend if necessary.
Participant selection and funding
For our participant selection process, we chose strategies designed to attract a more diverse population of attendees. We started by interpreting the scientific themes broadly, welcoming participants from a wider mathematical spectrum of research topics than we might have initially conceived. We also advertised our events early and broadly, which was crucial for reaching beyond our pre-established inner circles. To help en- sure a diverse group of researchers could take part, we circulated open and inclusive announcements through multiple channels, including PIMS, Women in Numbers, and the National Association of Mathematicians; we also maintained a self-enrolled CRG mailing list, accessible through a banner on our website and also promoted through the above announcements and our activities. Rather than relying solely on inviting people based on personal knowledge, we used open calls with intake forms to select speakers and participants.
Our decisions focused on the content of each applicant’s research description or abstract, emphasizing potential and contributions over reference letters and academic lineage. We intentionally included partici- pants from smaller institutions or places without active research groups in our field, recognizing that these colleagues often have less robust professional networks and would therefore benefit even more from our ef- forts. This approach significantly broadened our pool of potential contributors and, in many cases, brought outstanding researchers to our attention whom we might not have otherwise considered.
To ensure our choices would not inadvertently exclude people—especially in funding decisions and visa applications—we started planning over a year in advance, creating a calendar of internal deadlines to keep us organized and on track. We included information about funding and lodging support in the original advertisements and prioritized early-career researchers, faculty without grants, women, and caregivers in our allocation decisions. The data required to support these decisions was obtained through our registration forms. In particular, travel, food, and accommodation costs were in most cases completely covered for junior in-person participants; we emphasized covering full costs for as many people as possible, since partial support is often still insufficient for international travelers to attend. And indeed, 80% of post-event survey respondents who received financial support considered it very significant or crucial for their attendance.
Communication
We tried to ensure that participants felt comfortable, whether or not they were familiar with us or with the event’s location, by clearly and regularly imparting practical details for their stay. To ease the process of preparing for the conference, which can be daunting for many, we provided detailed information about the event site, lodging, travel, dining, and accessibility well in advance. In addition to the website, a comprehensive program served as an information booklet and was widely appreciated for its intuitive table of contents and indexing, which made it easier to navigate. We emphasized the use of this program and supplemented it with daily announcements and updates throughout the event. Preparing the program for our first event was time-consuming, but once complete, it became an indispensable resource for organizing all subsequent events.
Through the extensive communication we maintained leading up to the event, both through group mes- sages and individual exchanges, we emphasized the human aspects of the event just as much as the scientific ones. We believe this practice helped attendees become familiar with us in advance, creating an atmosphere where they felt safer participating and more secure when presenting. For example, we found that in our final scientific event, younger audience members asked more questions than we had ever experienced before.
The human experience
Other aspects of our organizational efforts focused on facilitating access not only to scientific content but also to the the people who create it. We wanted the time spent together to maximize opportunities for participants to learn, exchange ideas, and connect with one another. The sharing of both human experiences and scientific knowledge was a central motivation for how we structured our events.
Welcoming participants
In our experience, a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere boosts our capacity to learn and think; conversely, a judgmental and hostile atmosphere, or one monopolized by a few domineering attendees, stifles our creativity and sense of belonging. This experience led us to reflect on the characteristics of unwelcoming spaces and consider what it takes to create more inclusive, inviting environments.
Already in our initial advertising, we clearly communicated our inclusive policies and intentions to host an open and respectful event. We included the PIMS Code of Conduct as part of the open call for participation; we explicitly announced that we organizers would abide by its contents and stated the expectation that participants would as well.
For participants housed on campus, we made it a priority to accommodate their accessibility needs and their preferences regarding shared or private units, as well as their preference for the gender of the person they would potentially be sharing with. We prepared welcome packages that included water and snacks for their rooms so they would not need to worry about food in case of a late arrival. To prevent the spread of diseases and to show that we welcomed and supported participants who needed protection, we provided masks and COVID tests at the registration table. The registration table also offered pronoun stickers that participants could add to their name tags if they wished; as organizers, we normalized this practice by using them ourselves.
Our event website provided clear directions on how to access the venue, lecture rooms, and various facilities that participants would need during their stay. This information included locations of accessible paths, gender-neutral bathrooms, rooms suitable for nursing infants, and quiet rooms for destimulation. While we were always available to assist, we hoped to provide attendees with the information they needed to shape their conference experience from the beginning. When we did receive individual requests (such as a speaker wanting a crib for an accompanying small child), we negotiated on their behalf with the hosting institution to accommodate their needs.
Equity, diversity, and inclusion
Many groups are unfairly underrepresented in our discipline, and we are among those who believe that fields without diverse participation cannot be thriving and evolving fields. We understand that creating a welcoming atmosphere goes beyond what our own individual efforts can guarantee. To be more proactive in fostering equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), we wove its principles throughout the planning and structure of our events and incorporated specific initiatives aligned with those values.
We made strategic choices to ensure fair representation in the demographics of both speakers and atten- dees. Our demographic criteria included belonging to an equity-deserving group (women, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible minorities/racialized groups, and members of 2SLGBTQI+ com- munities) as well as geographic location, size of affiliated university, and career stage. The selection criteria for participants also included a commitment to upholding the inclusive values outlined in the PIMS Code of Conduct. When group work was part of an event, we asked participants about their experience and attitudes concerning collaborative work. The various choices already described—advertisement strategies, wording and clarity of our messages, and anticipation of financial, logistical, or physical barriers—helped spotlight underrepresented groups and early-career researchers. Quantitatively, over 70% of speakers were assistant professors or postdocs, and over one third of plenary speakers were women.
Our events included specific EDI sessions that were on equal footing in the schedule with scientific talks. We invited EDI professionals—often from the institutions hosting the events—to contribute their expertise to these sessions. In the planning phase, we discussed our intentions with them and described the target audience, indicating for example how much of the audience had decision-making authority at their home institutions, and how much was international and thus may have different cultural perspectives on EDI. It was essential that we had trained experts facilitating discussions, which can be emotional or uncomfortable, and proposing thought-provoking exercises and homework. Depending on the context, these experts challenged misconceptions about equity in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, raised questions about the challenges faced by junior mathematicians—especially those from historically marginalized groups—and educated participants about the necessity and practice of inclusion in the discipline of mathematics.
We also made EDI-related books available to browse and borrow at the registration table, as well as linking reading material from the event webpage. References included Asked and Answered: Dialogues on advocating for students of color in mathematics by Harris and Winger; The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian universities by Henry, Dua, James, Kobayashi, Li, Ramos, and Smith; and Living Proof: Stories of resilience along the mathematical journey edited by Henrich, Lawrence, Pons, and Taylor.
While these initiatives required extra planning, the time devoted to non-mathematical activities offered valuable community-centred space in the program. These breaks allowed participants to be themselves and engage with others on another level. We found that attendees welcomed these initiatives and subsequently engaged with the scientific content with heightened focus and enthusiasm. A majority—about 70% of par- ticipants across events—found these sessions valuable; one respondent, who had been attending conferences for more than ten years, shared that they loved (to the tune of five exclamation points) the fact that an event finally put this much focus on EDI.
Social and cultural engagement
Scientific community is strengthened through informal interactions. While we anticipated spontaneous so- cial interactions outside the planned schedule (at meals, for example), our planning included incorporating additional social opportunities in our schedule. We built time into the program for participants to meet, in- troduce themselves, and interact with enough structure to help them overcome their understandable shyness. For instance, working groups paired junior and senior researchers to facilitate mentorship and collaboration. We also arranged social activities with a connection to local culture and geography; these opt-in activities allowed attendees to know ahead of time that they could participate socially in at least one group event they did not have to initiate themselves.
In each of our scientific events, the first item on the schedule after the welcome and introductory remarks was an icebreaker. For example, groups of participants were given hints to a puzzle with a mathematical connection, and then the groups were shuffled for the afternoon continuation of the icebreaker so that people could combine the hints they were given to solve the puzzle. The main purpose was the opportunity for people to meet and introduce themselves to a random cross-section of event participants, encouraging communication and collaboration among people who might not otherwise have interacted. For another icebreaker (suggested by ChatGPT!), every participant chose an integer or real number they liked for some reason. Participants then sorted themselves by their numbers into a physical line in the foyer, introducing themselves to their neighbours and explaining why they found their number interesting.
Each event included an end-of-day “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session. Prior to the event, we reached out to a select group of colleagues whose career paths we believed would be most interesting to the attending students and postdocs. These people shared information about themselves ahead of time that they felt would resonate with junior participants, who in turn had an excuse to approach and converse with more senior colleagues when that otherwise might have been psychologically challenging. The AMA sessions were hosted on the online platform Gather to include online participants and to enable smoother transitions between conversation groups than a physical setting would have allowed. Though scheduled for an hour, these sessions often extended well beyond the allotted time.
In choosing social activities, we also looked for ways to explore relationships with local Indigenous peoples. Art galleries at the host institutions took us on tours of Indigenous art installations on campus and described them in the context of decolonization. We were particularly grateful to have had knowledgeable professional guides from these galleries (another detail that needed to be arranged ahead of time), since our international audience had widely varying bases of knowledge about Indigenous Canadians. These events were free for participants, although in each case the organizers made donations to the galleries in recognition of their time and effort (and let participants know how to donate if they wanted to). These activities allowed for a greater appreciation of the venues and gave context to the land acknowledgments and EDI discussions, especially for international participants. In addition to their artistic and educational benefits, both tours served as pleasant strolls around the campuses, with ample time between destinations for chatting with one another along the way.
When free afternoons were available, we planned opt-in excursions to nearby provincial parks, making sure to highlight hikes of varying duration and difficulty and to learn the accessibility needs for each location. We also included directions to walking trails near event venues in our programs and custom maps, with notes on their difficulty levels.
We enjoyed organizing some less standard activities as well. For example, we partnered with a local swing dance club to offer a free beginner Lindy hop lesson. We made use of common spaces at centralized accommodations to host multiple board- and card-game nights (board and card games were also available to borrow from the registration table). One enthusiastic participant even organized several well-attended karaoke nights using their laptop and the common room’s projection and sound system.
We found that these social aspects, besides simply being enjoyable, helped foster an environment in which participants felt comfortable engaging with one another (especially across career stages), asking questions, and forming connections. Post-event surveys revealed that participants overwhelmingly found the events inclusive, respectful, and supportive and felt safe and comfortable throughout the events.
Scientific resonances
Our CRG’s events yielded a range of valuable outcomes—original scientific contributions, accessible learning opportunities, meaningful connections, and fruitful collaborations. At the heart of our approach was the belief that centring human experience not only enriches participation but also strengthens scientific impact. Some of our events had specific innovative focuses—two of them being the first of their kind in their respective subfields—and we found great value in intentionally bringing together people who might not otherwise have met at more general conferences.
A key part of our CRG focused on training. We taught three online graduate courses designed to ease access to the advanced material that would be covered during the scientific events. This preparatory work served as an inclusive bridge into the field, especially for newcomers, and helped make the events more impactful across experience levels. Our summer school provided dozens of junior participants with training in both theoretical and computational aspects of the subject. Most talks were broadcast on Zoom to maximize accessibility, and we preserved videos and slides from over a hundred talks on publicly available sites such as MathTube and BIRS.
Reflecting our belief that scientific progress is advanced by collaborative efforts, our main events began with shared problem lists compiled from participants’ contributions. These lists, circulated before the events and updated afterwards, prompted conversations and sparked collaborations that carried through and beyond the gatherings. These documents are posted on the arXiv with the potential of future revisions. In some cases, we have already seen feedback from the research community and the resolution of several listed problems.
Part of our summer school was dedicated to solving central problems in the computational part of our field. We created structured opportunities for junior participants to contribute to these solutions in collaborative groups, similar in structure to the successful and empowering Women in Numbers model. These activities were designed to provide early-career participants with the opportunity to significantly contribute to the field, with postdoctoral researchers taking on co-leadership roles to gain supervisory experience. Most groups achieved their research goals and are now completing papers based on their work.
These outcomes—whether scientific, educational, or interpersonal—underscored our central belief that thoughtfully designed events can leave a lasting influence on both the participants and the field itself.
Final reflections
Our philosophy, when inviting people to a conference in mathematics, is to empower them through that experience. The premise follows that thoughtful planning—with an emphasis on inclusivity, clear communi- cation, social connection, and broad participation—can enhance the impact of scientific conferences for all attendees. We were heartened to receive strong positive feedback about both the mathematical content and the inclusive atmosphere of our events (and truly, the thorough planning made the conferences run noticeably more smoothly in their mundane aspects as well). We hope these reflections and shared experience inspire others to re-examine default conference models and to prioritize meaningful engagement in their own future events.
At the same time, we acknowledge that “inclusivity” has unfairly become a loaded word. We are certainly aware of the hostility that can arise from efforts like ours. Nevertheless, we stand by our intentions—because we believe that the human impact of these events is at least as valuable as the mathematics within them. There was genuine joy in organizing and participating in these conferences—affirmation that continues to resonate with those of us who experienced it. To echo Federico Ardila’s beautiful axiom, “Everyone can have joyful, meaningful, and empowering mathematical experiences.” And since dance is something all of us authors love, it feels especially fitting to close with the saying nadie te quita lo bailado (“nobody can take from you what you’ve already danced”).
We gratefully acknowledge the support of our sponsors (PIMS, BIRS, and NSF among many others); Marni Mishna, who planted the seed for this journey; the staff and colleagues who supported our efforts; and all participants for their warm and enthusiastic contributions, both human and scientific.
Appendix
On our main CRG website one can find links to the three major scientific events we organized:
- Workshop on Moments of L-functions (2022), a one-week hybrid event with participants evenly split between online and in person at the University of Northern British Columbia,
- Inclusive Paths in Explicit Number Theory (2023), a two-week event consisting of a one-week hybrid summer school followed by a one-week in-person research collaboratory, both held at Banff International Research Station at the University of British Columbia–Okanagan.
- Comparative Prime Number Theory Symposium (2024), a one-week hybrid event with most partici- pants in person at the University of British Columbia–Vancouver.
These websites contain information such as:
- Description of the event, land acknowledgment, lists of speakers and participants, organizers,
- Planning for the event: Code of Conduct, registration, transportation, accommodations, COVID/illness
- During the event: schedule, dining options, maps, venue and registration table information, networking and leisure events, borrowable resources (including EDI references), wifi information.
- Takeaways: lecture videos and slides, lists of open problems, takeaways from EDI sessions, photos, final reports.
For the interested reader, we provide samples of the programs, registration forms, and post-event surveys that have been referenced throughout the article.
