Conference: Equity and Inclusion in Research Failure Disclosure

The University of Virginia (UVA) ADVANCE conference project will support a convening on the issue of failure disclosure in the sciences, with particular attention given to inequalities of failure as experienced by women faculty in STEM. Potential topics for the convening include, equitable approaches to failure and failure disclosure at the institutional level; unexpected outcomes: reporting/publishing failed research; and ethical dimensions of failure disclosure for women in STEM. The in-person conference is planned for 2024 and includes pre and post conference components to support outreach and communication of findings from the conference. Conference participants will come from across the US and include different STEM disciplines, faculty ranks and appointment types, and institution types. UVA will strategically partner with the Society of STEM Women of Color (SSWOC) and the Women in Research group (WinR). The existing literature on research failure reporting in STEM and the potential benefits of increasing reporting research failure does not sufficiently examine the different consequences of failure disclosure based on the underrepresented status of the person doing the disclosing. This work rarely considers what can occur when failure disclosure is done uncritically, especially when it ignores questions of power, gender, race, and the competitive context in which academic science is practiced. The conference thus will seek to ensure relevant questions are raised about the equity of failure reporting by consulting with STEM faculty women of color such as: Who is permitted to fail, for whom is failure safe, and why? Who has gained the institutional credibility to publicly engage with failure? Whose failure stories inspire, and whose invite blame and negative evaluation? This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.