The early career, gender, and diversity actions at the LHCb Collaboration

Numerous surveys of modern particle physics indicate that the discipline is still largely a male pursuit, and one in which women and other marginalised groups continue to face discriminatory practices. The fraction of female particle physicists reduces with each career stage. Early career particle physicists face precarious employment conditions with serial short term contracts, long working hours, the frequent need to relocate, and little prospect for a permanent academic position. There are indications that these employment conditions add to the gender-imbalance in the field, but clearly, this problem directly affects both male and female early career scientists. The LHCb experiment has, as the first (and so far only) LHC experiment, created a dedicated office for Early Career Gender and Diversity (ECGD) (see http://lhcb.web.cern.ch/lhcb/ECGD_Office/ECGD-intro.html ). The ECGD office’s role is to to advise the management on ECGD matters; provide a point of contact for anybody experiencing any kind discrimination, bullying or harassment; collate regular statistics and other relevant information related to gender and, where appropriate, other ECGD matters; organise regular open meetings where ECGD matters are discussed. We report on our first year of experiences as the first ECGD officers in the LHC’s first ECGD office. Amongst the pitfalls of such an office is the potential of being perceived as either inconsequential, or as an external body that is a source of new rules and complications. We will highlight the strategies we adopted in an attempt to circumnavigate these pitfalls, aiming to be (and be seen as) an integral part of LHCb, working with the entire collaboration to achieve an environment in which all members can thrive. We will also discuss a few highlights of our programme in that year, including well-attended plenary meetings at LHCb weeks on topics such as “mentoring”, “(m/p)aternity leave”, “sexual harrassment”, “careers inside and outside HEP” - and the implementation of a mentoring scheme.