Statement paper on diversity for the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM)

INTRODUCTION: Diversity has become a key-strategic element of success in various political and economic fields. The European Society of Intensive Care Medicine (ESICM) decided to make diversity a key strategic priority for the future and appointed a Task-Force on this topic. METHODS: In a consensus process, three Working-Groups, nominated by Task-Force members, developed statements on strategic future topics. In addition, diversity-related data available from the membership database have been analyzed and reported in aggregated form. RESULTS: The Task-Force decided to nominate working groups on (1) “sex, gender identity and sexual orientation”, (2) “ethnicity, culture and socio-economic status”, and (3) “multiprofessionalism”. These are the first prioritized topics for the near future. The first diversity-report shows targetable items in all three domains. CONCLUSION: The diversity Task-Force defined actionable items for a one- and three-year plan that are especially aiming at the identification of potential gaps and an implementation of concrete projects for members of the ESICM. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s00134-019-05606-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.