EACL 2021 Diversity and Inclusion Efforts

Overview

For EACL-2021, continuing with the Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) initiatives at ACL sponsored conferences, especially ACL 2020, EMNLP 2020 and AACL-IJCNLP 2020, we have supported/endorsed the activities described in this blog post.

Promoting Inclusion

We have organized different types of events to promote both academic and socio-cultural inclusion:

  • Birds of a Feather (BoF) Sessions, for participants to discuss research in specific areas, exchange ideas and possibly identify new collaborations.
  • Language diversity panel and games: we have organized events for participants, including:
    • a panel to discuss possible measures for increasing and promoting language diversity in conferences,
    • language games for giving a taster of different languages and celebrate language diversity, and
    • an interactive presentation of the Ukrainian language.
  • Group Mentoring Sessions, for students and early-career researchers to meet and get advice from senior researchers on various topics including career choices, work-life balance, and how to set collaborations. The sessions will be structured as round-table discussions.
  • Affinity Group Socials to raise awareness of socio-cultural differences among our community and promote interactions. We have reached out to various groups and opened calls and will support them in hosting their events during EACL:

Increasing Accessibility

Thanks to our sponsor Grammarly for donating premium access codes for the authors of main conference.

Increasing Financial Accessibility

Applications to EACL 2021 D&I Awards can be made using this link which went live at the start of the registration period. To increase visibility, the form is linked to the conference registration form, promoted on the EACL website and shared on social media. Thanks to our sponsors, Adobe and Microsoft.

Contact the Committee

If you have suggestions or questions about D&I efforts at EACL 2021, our contact is at eacl2021diversity@gmail.com

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the D&I chairs of ACL 2020, EMNLP 2020, AACL-IJCNLP, along with the D&I sponsors, and champions from the various groups for sharing materials and experiences, and for their helpful feedback and suggestions.

Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee