Round tables
We propose two group sessions to reflect on issues affecting the mathematical community. We hope that many of you will join and participate, especially after this long period of reduced interactions within the community!
Short stories of failure that ended well (... or not)
To conclude the second day (Tuesday evening), we propose an original session entitled "Short stories of failures that ended well (...or not)". The goal of this special session is to encourage participants to share scientfiic experiences of failures, struggles, negative results, rejections, to remind that comfortable science is an oxymoron. The hope of this session is to discuss failure and encourage resilience, via the shared experience of researchers of all horizons. Examples will include hours of efforts to design meticulously an experiment which completely fails, measurements leading to unexpected results that one's hypotheses cannot explain, months of efforts to demonstrate results already proven by another group, etc. Participants will be asked to develop (if possible) the positive aspects of their failures and how they actually contributed to the advancement of their research. We will host an interactive discussion to explore how researchers can better celebrate the works which do not fit in the view of a "successful" research career. By talking about failure openly, sharing a laugh, and promoting resilience, this session will particularly target early-career researchers. It will hopefully help them to fully understand that failure is an essential and inescapable part of scientific research no matter the researcher's experience, and should not be disregarded as such.
Some food for thought:
Round tables
On Wednesday afternoon, we will organize two round tables around the following themes:
Backpacking mathematicians: we encourage participants to share on the accessibility of careers and jobs in their countries of origin, and about the integration of foreign researchers in their institutions. What are the available tools and what tools can be developed to encourage international collaborations, worldwide scientific education and job accessibility, in particular for women? How has the absence of on site conferences and research visits (due to the covid crisis) affected our research?
Women in science: we will discuss around women's representation and participation in national science academies, and raise questions and issues such as "How much of a role does unconscious bias play in academies' election or selection as members?"; "Are the criteria for membership limiting women's chances?"; "What about socio-cultural aspects?" etc.
Feel free to share ideas to discuss in this shared document.
