Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Database Conferences

The Data Management community is committed to the promotion of diversity, equity and inclusion in all aspects of our professional activities. We celebrate the diversity in our community and welcome everyone regardless of age, gender identity, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, country of origin, religion, sexual orientation, physical ability, education, and work experience. We also welcome people and opinions of all political persuasions, as long as they abide by the ACM policy against harassment. Our initiative coordinates DEI efforts across the data management community and includes this year’s DEI chairs of CIDR, SIGMOD/PODS, VLDB, EDBT/ICDT, ICDE, ADBIS, MDM and SIGSPATIAL.

Our Mission

Make diversity, equity and inclusion a first class citizen in our conferences. Establish a feedback loop to better understand our standing with respect to all underrepresented groups. Ultimately, guide our community to adopt a more inclusive mindset in general toward different individuals regardless of their age, gender, gender identity, race, cultural background, religion, physical and mental ability, sexual orientation, parental and marital status, etc. Discourage discriminatory behavior during events that cause certain groups to feel unwelcome. This initiative is in collaboration with DBCares, following the ACM policy against harassment and processes for reporting unacceptable behavior. Our code of conduct can be found here.

Our Core Actions

COORDINATE This action is in charge of coordinating between core members, liaisons, and the current year's DEI chairs.
SCOUT This action is in charge of collating DEI efforts from other communities and advocating learned ideas in the DB community.
ETHICS This action is in charge of establishing and promoting ethics guidelines for publications in our community.
MEDIA This action is in charge of preserving and deseminating the digital media produced by DEI@DB events.
DIVERSIFY This action is in charge of understanding the community diversity through pre & post conference data collection

Actions in charge of Conferences and DEI Chairs

INCLUDE This action is in charge of monitoring and recommending all inclusion efforts.
ORGANIZE This action is in charge of in-conference organization such as code of conduct.
INFORM This action is in charge of informing our community.
REACH OUT This action is in charge of collecting data and experiences from our community.
SUPPORT This action is in charge of coordinating DEI support from executive bodies and sponsors.

We welcome suggestions for events, formats, changes in procedures, outreach, and other activities that promote our goals in enhancing diversity, amplifying underrepresented voices, and creating a more inclusive data management community.

DEI Materials

Feel free to share, reuse, and modify these materials as you wish for your conference or other purposes. Acknowledgment of the content creators is appreciated.

DEI Initiative Presentation
Inclusion, Equity and Diversity in Writing
Tips for Creating Inclusive Talks and Videos
DB DEI Code of Ethics
DEI Guidelines for Conference Organization

Software

Our efforts are enabled by the following software that are deployed in various DB venues and beyond.

CLOSET: A comprehensive tool for detection and management of conflict-of-interest (COI) in peer-reviewed venues
GAP - Gender Analysis for Publications: A tool to analyze the gender distribution in scientific publications

Our 2024 Meetings

Meeting 20 Nov 8, 2024: TBD. Meeting 19 Sep 13, 2024: Webpage update (new information and DEI/DBCARES). Material for SUPPORT@Conferences. DEI@workshops. Reports EDBT/ICDT, ADBIS, SIGMOD. Conferences prep Meeting 18 Feb 9, 2024: Code of Ethics/Code of Conduct, Discussion on extending DEI to workshops/demos/journals. CIDR 2022 debriefs, DEBS/ADBIS/EDBT 2022 prep.

Our 2022 Meetings

Meeting 13 Nov 10, 2022: 2022 DEI Report prep. DEI initiative membership renewal. Meeting 12 Sep 23, 2022: Rebranding D&I -> DEI. DEI/DBCARES. Extending DEI to journals (proposal for VLDBJ). DEI@workshops. Perimeter of the ETHICS action. Meeting 11 Jul 8, 2022: Definition of two new ations MEDIA and ETHICS. Meeting 10 Apr 8, 2022: Discussion Code of Ethics and Bylaws of our initiative. Webpage update for 2022. EDBT/ICDT report. ICDE/SIGMOD prep. Meeting 9 Feb 11, 2022: Code of Ethics/Code of Conduct, Discussion on extending DEI to workshops/demos/journals. CIDR 2022 debriefs, DEBS/ADBIS/EDBT 2022 prep.

Our 2021 Meetings

Meeting 8 Sep 24, 2021: VLDB 2021 debrief, SIGMOD Report prep. Meeting 7 July 2, 2021: MDM, DEBS, SIGMOD 2021 debriefs and VLDB, WISE, SoCC, ADBIS 2021 prep. Meeting 6 May 7, 2021: EDBT/ICDT and ICDE debriefs including automatic COI detection tool, SIGMOD prep. Meeting 5 April 9, 2021: Ullman situation. Meeting 4 March 19. 2021: Pre-EDBT/ICDT and ICDE 2021: Questionnaire launch. Meeting 3 Feb 19, 2021: Questionnaire and reach out to individual conferences. Meeting 2 Jan 29, 2021: Webpage setup and advertisement. Meeting 1 Dec 11, 2020: definition of ACTIONS.