Euclid Consortium Code of Conduct

Version 2.5

November  2023

** Please note that this version of the Code of Conduct might not always be the most recent due to delays in updating the website. The most up to date version can always be found on the Redmine. **

Version 2.5 : Mark Brodwin, Peter Coles (Chair), Giuseppe Congedo, Helmut Dannerbauer, Eleonora di Valentino, Florence Durret, Marc Huertas-Company, 

Shahab Joudaki (Co-Chair), Amandine Le Brun, Guillaume Mahler, 

Chiara Sirignano (Co-Chair), James Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in November 2023

Version 2.4 : Mark Brodwin, Peter Coles, Florence Durret, Marc Huertas-Company, Angela Iovino (co-Chair), Mathilde Jauzac (Chair), Shahab Joudaki, Amandine Le Brun, Chiara Sirignano, Mathias Schultheis, Peter Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in May 2023.

Version 2.3 : Mark Brodwin, Peter Coles, Florence Durret, Marc Huertas-Company, Angela Iovino (co-Chair), Mathilde Jauzac (Chair), Shahab Joudaki, Amandine Le Brun, Chiara Sirignano, Mathias Schultheis, Peter Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in March 2023.

Version 2.2 : Mark Brodwin, Peter Coles, Florence Durret, Marc Huertas-Company, Angela Iovino (co-Chair), Mathilde Jauzac (Chair), Shahab Joudaki, Amandine Le Brun, Chiara Sirignano, Mathias Schultheis, Peter Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in January 2023.

Version 2.0 : Mark Brodwin, Peter Coles, Florence Durret, Marc Huertas-Company, Angela Iovino (co-Chair), Mathilde Jauzac (Chair), Shahab Joudaki, Amandine Le Brun, Chiara Sirignano, Mathias Schultheis, Peter Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in January 2022.

Version 1.5 : Yashar Akrami, Mark Brodwin, Angela Iovino (co-Chair), Mathilde Jauzac (Chair), Arun Kannawadi, Simona Mei, Chiara Sirignano, Jenny Sorce,  Mathias Schultheis, Peter Taylor

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board in January 2021.

 Version 1.1 : Jarle Brinchmann, Stefano Camera, Pratika Dayal, Anna Maria Di Giorgio, Daniel Eisenstein, Bianca Garilli, Mathilde Jauzac, Tom Kitching, Sabrina Pottinger, Sibylle Techene, Stefanie Wachter (Chair)

Endorsed by the Euclid Consortium Board on July 12, 2017.

The Euclid Consortium (EC) is a large collaboration composed of people from different backgrounds and cultures. Its ability to provide excellent service to the astronomical community is enhanced by establishing an inclusive consortium culture. Embracing differences and fostering an inclusive environment creates opportunities for participation and innovation and contributes to a productive, high-achieving workforce. The Euclid Consortium encourages questioning assumptions, methods and results, considering this an important part of the scientific process, but which should always be done in a respectful way. The Euclid Consortium is therefore adopting the following Code of Conduct to reinforce these important principles.  

Inclusion and respect

All EC members should strive to treat everyone encountered in their professional life with respect, to solicit and listen to diverse opinions, and to treat such opinions with civility. They should be alert to behaviour from themselves or others that would act to exclude or disregard other members in work-related activities.

Discrimination 

EC members should promote equality of opportunity and treatment for all their colleagues, regardless of (alphabetically) age, disability, ethnicity, gender, marital status, nationality, physical appearance, political affiliation, pregnancy, race, religion, sexual orientation, and status as a caregiver (including as a parent).

In particular, it is required that appointments to roles within the EC be made in a manner to ensure such equality of opportunity.

Harassment and Bullying

The EC will not tolerate verbal, nonverbal, physical, or sexual harassment or bullying of any kind. Behaviour and language acceptable to one person may not be to another. Unwelcome attention, threatening or abusive language, insulting, hurtful, or disrespectful comments, are strictly banned from the EC. Members must make every effort to ensure that words and actions communicate respect for others.

Members further shall not recklessly or maliciously injure, or attempt to injure, directly or indirectly, the reputation and career prospects of others.

The EC places a high priority on eliminating sexual harassment from the workplace. Sexual harassment includes (but is not limited to) sexual advances, requests for sexual favours, and verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature when either: a) submission to or rejection of such advances, requests or conduct is made either explicitly or implicitly a term or condition of employment or a basis for employment or advancement decisions; or b) such advances, requests, or conduct have the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance by creating an intimidating, hostile, humiliating, or sexually offensive work environment.

Scientific Misconduct

All members should demonstrate personal and organizational integrity in all matters. Fabrication of data or selective reporting of data with the intent to mislead or deceive is unethical, unacceptable, and fraudulent. The same applies to any kind of plagiarism (including internal communications), the appropriation of unpublished data or research results from others without permission and attribution. It should be recognized that honest error is an integral part of the scientific enterprise. It is not unethical to be wrong, provided that errors are promptly acknowledged and corrected when they are detected.

Transparency

It is a guiding principle that the Euclid Consortium should conduct its work in the most open, transparent and inclusive manner possible. Scientific discussion should be held in fora open to as wide an audience within the EC as is practical, while guarding sensitive information from leaking out of the consortium. To this end, EC members should wherever possible use official Euclid routes for internal communications, e.g. the official Slack channels, and avoid using private alternatives.

Communication 

EC members should strive to communicate in an inclusive fashion, using accessible language. For example, acronyms should always be expanded when used for the first time and their use should be minimized as much as possible in all forms of communication (EC website, Redmine, presentation slides, etc).

Privacy 

While maintaining the overall principle of openness and transparency, the EC does of course recognize that there are situations in which privacy and confidentiality are absolutely necessary. Redistributing private e-mails or other messages containing personal feelings or opinions is considered a breach of the Code of Conduct.

A person desiring an even higher degree of privacy for the correspondence can add the following sentence to mails “The content of this email is confidential and intended for the recipient(s) specified in message only. It is strictly forbidden to share any part of this message with any third party, without written consent of the sender.”

ECDC current and former members are formally committed to strict confidentiality.

Recordings of Euclid Videoconferences

In the circumstances that Euclid video conferences are recorded, the meeting chair must receive explicit consent from all participants before recording. Explicit confirmation can include clicking a consent button (an option offered by several video conference platforms such as Zoom and Teams), or an email confirmation. EC members have the right to refuse being recorded, and consent should never be assumed as default. Recording Euclid videoconferences without the explicit consent of all participants is considered a violation of the EC Code of Conduct. EC policy recommends that recordings be announced ahead of time when possible to avoid having any EC members being placed in an uncomfortable situation when consent is asked for.

Recording of standard EC meetings (regular EC video conferences) should not be considered as a replacement for detailed written minutes. In the case of recordings happening with the purpose of writing complete minutes later, explicit consent from all participants should still be obtained prior to the start of the recording, and the recording should not be stored permanently and should be erased once the minutes are approved unless there is written consent by all participants. In the specific case of a talk being presented during an EC video conference, the speakers should give their explicit consent to be recorded as well as any participants asking questions. EC policy is that in such situations the subsequent Q&As are not recorded as some participants might not feel comfortable asking questions while being recorded, making them feel excluded and/or preventing their intervention with questions. Alternatively, the organizer(s) could set up a method by which participants can ask their questions anonymously.

Resolution of Conflicts and Complaints

The Euclid Consortium Diversity Committee (ECDC) is available to provide conflict resolution, with the hope of achieving satisfactory outcomes without formal sanctions. ECDC members will undergo specific training to prepare them for this role. If it becomes apparent, at any point during the complaints process, that the complaint implies potentially criminal acts, the appropriate authorities will be notified immediately.

EC members who believe that they have been negatively impacted by a possible violation of the Code of Conduct would start the process by contacting an ECDC member, who will then alert the ECDC chair (or a substitute if the chair is conflicted).

Without disclosing the identities of any of the parties, the ECDC will internally deliberate to determine if the reported actions constitute a potential violation of the EC Code of Conduct.  Should it be determined that such a violation may have occurred, the ECDC chair and the member who has been directly contacted will communicate with the initiator, securing confidentiality, to determine the basic parameters of the complaint and to determine how the initiator would like to proceed. Should the desire be for further action, the ECDC chair will appoint a subgroup, typically 3-4 members, who will investigate further. If the initiator opts to end confidentiality, then this group is able to contact other parties, in order to gather more viewpoints and to try to help mediate an informal resolution. The ECDC will seek to handle this discretely and to limit discussion of the case to not go beyond the ECDC subgroup and the involved parties.

Should the initiator opt to pursue a formal complaint, then the ECDC chair (or their substitute, or the initiator themselves) will approach one contact person on  the Euclid Consortium Board (ECB). The ECB will designate three of its members to serve as such contacts, so that conflicts of interest can be avoided. The ECB contact person will then serve as chair of a group of 5 people (the Complaints Panel), selected by the ECB and including three ECB members (not necessarily the contact group) and two ECDC members (distinct from the previous ECDC subgroup), who will review the case and decide whether to investigate the issue in a discrete manner, or refer the case to an external body with jurisdiction over the accused, such as one or more of the institutions employing those involved. The full ECB and the ECDC will be informed of the formation of a Complaints Panel, but without names or details of the complaint. It is noted that anonymous complaints cannot be investigated.

Should the Complaints Panel decide to pursue an investigation, it will arrive at a decision regarding fault and the resulting sanctions to be imposed, and will inform the involved parties. It will also inform the full ECB of the existence of the case and its resolution, including, if fault was found, the name of the accused and the decision of sanctions, but without names of the initiator or any witnesses or details of the complaint.

If the Complaints Panel opts to refer the case to an external body, this referral ideally would happen before a wider set of interviews is conducted but can happen at any time. The Complaints Panel should be careful regarding the conflicts of interest that can arise when the external body has associations to the accused but not the accuser; it may determine that multiple institutions should be contacted. The Complaints Panel would inform the external bodies of the range of EC sanctions that could be applied and require that it be kept informed regarding the progress of the external process and that a decision as to sanctions be returned to the ECB in writing. While the ECB cannot hear an appeal of an investigation that it did not conduct, the referral to an external body does not prevent the ECB from re-starting its investigation of the charge.

The ECB will seek to resolve such formal complaints in a prompt manner, ideally within 2 months of the receipt of the complaint.

Should a party seek to appeal the decision of the ECB investigation, then such appeal should be made within one month of the communication of the decision. The appeal will be heard by the remaining members of the ECB, excluding those who are conflicted or recused and those who were in the original investigative group. At this point, manifestly all names and details must be revealed to the rest of the ECB, who will treat the matter confidentially.

If the complaint includes a violation of law, the complainer is encouraged to ask for legal advice in EC institutions when this is available. In no circumstance does the EC Code of Conduct supplant laws or institutional policies or requirements to which members of the EC or home institutions are subject, including reporting requirements these individuals or entities may have. It is understood that EC members may report allegations of violations to home institutions, government agencies, or local authorities for investigation per applicable laws, regulations, and policies. Further, it is understood that some ECB members may opt to recuse themselves due to these external policies and laws.

It is important to protect individuals from false, unsubstantiated, or inaccurate accusations. It is a violation of the Code of Conduct to knowingly provide false information, knowingly make a false report of suspected misconduct or a subsequent false report of retaliation, or knowingly provide false answers or information in response to an ongoing investigation.

Retaliation

Retaliation toward a member who pursues any of these options, or toward anyone assisting either in the conflict resolution process or in the investigation of a formal complaint, is a violation of this Code.

Potential Sanctions

All EC members are expected to abide by this Code of Conduct, and prospective members must agree to the terms of the Code of Conduct as condition of acceptance into the EC. EC members are granted membership privileges at the discretion of the EC Board (ECB), and such privileges may be revoked upon reasonable grounds, including but not limited to violations of this Code of Conduct.

Violations of this Code of Conduct can result in a wide range of sanctions, depending on the severity, including restriction from participation in EC telecons, restriction from participation in EC meetings and workshops, suspension from EC working groups, or suspension or revocation of EC membership. Should a formal sanction be imposed, the home institution of the sanctioned person will be informed.

In addition, should the Euclid Consortium Board be made formally aware (through a press release, a direct communication from an official representative or any means traceable and confirmed by representative authorities) of a Euclid member being sanctioned or censured by their department, institution, or professional society for an activity that constitutes a violation of the Euclid Code of Conduct or places Euclid Consortium members at risk, the Euclid Consortium Board reserves the right to apply sanctions such as those detailed in the present Code to the individual, without formal investigation. This applies even if such a violation occurred outside of activities related to Euclid or before the existence of the Euclid Consortium.

Acknowledgement 

We thank the Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) Dark Energy Science Collaboration (DESC) Professional Conduct Committee for sharing the LSST DESC Code of Conduct, which provided a starting point for this document and from which some passages have been reused. 

Licensed for re-use according to Creative Commons CC0 1.0

https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/