The organizers of the SMARTER 9 meeting fully support and promote gender equality in accordance with the IUCr policy: https://www.iucr.org/iucr/principles-and-policies/gender-balance. As such, we have put forth a set of initiatives to ensure gender balance and work actively to promote the participation of women scientists in all its activities and to provide a platform where they are able to promote and constructively discuss their research work:

• We are working on developing statistics on women attending the conference as lecturers, presenters, and attendees to set gender balance aims for future conferences and put forth a set of measures that need to be addressed within the community to increase the active participation and representation of women scientists at all stages of their careers. The statistics will be provided to the conference participants and the members of the SMARTER Executive and Advisory Committees.
• We aim to have about 40% of the invitations for lectures sent out to women scientists, and at least 30% of the accepted invitations by women speakers.
• The choice of session Chairs will also target gender balance, aiming to have at least 40% female researchers as session Chair. 
• We will ensure gender equality in our committees (the Organizing Committee in particular), among our lecturers and participants and pay special attention to the gender balance in evaluating bursary applications.

Further information can be found on the website of IUCR’s Gender Equity and Diversity Committee GEDC . This page contains a code of conduct, a GEDC conference speaker statement and a toolkit for conference organisers. 

Scientific Freedom Policy Statement

The Organizing Committee of SMARTER 9 shall observe the basic policy of non-discrimination and affirms the right and freedom of scientists to associate in international scientific activity without regard to such factors as ethnic origin, religion, citizenship, language, political stance, gender, sex or age, in accordance with the Statutes of the International Council for Science. At SMARTER 9 no barriers will exist which would prevent the participation of bona fide scientists.

Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Statement

We welcome all scientists, regardless of their ethnic origin, race, citizenship, language, political views, gender, sex, sexual preferences, physical disabilities, and age. We strive to create a culture of diversity, equality, and inclusion.If you have any questions or inquiries, please do not hesitate to contact us (smarter9@uni-bayreuth.de).