Survey to collect views of the quantum community on equity, diversity and inclusion

Despite the progress that has been made in increasing the diversity in academia and more such as getting women into science at the university level, there remains a challenge to ensure the promotion of under-represented communities to senior positions, increase their representation as conference presenters, chairs, and, in general, their equal treatment. Many countries, institutions and national research initiatives have developed programmes to help support diversity, often focused in women, in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM), areas which have a good overlap with the diverse fields involved in Quantum Technologies. In industry, we see similar challenges.

The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) working  group is composed by members of the quantum community in academia and industry in different countries. One of its goals is to monitor the progress and of EDI in the quantum Community as well as the perception that the community has of these aspects. In order to do that, the group organises surveys such as this one in which it asks different types of questions that will help set the snapshot of how the community is doing in terms of EDI and that will lead to specific proposed actions that will be presented to the European Commission so that appropriate measures can be taken and calls issued that support these. It is thus very important to have as many answers to the survey as possible so that the analysis of the same and the outcomes that are drown can be as complete as possible.

The last survey was issued in 2019 to collect data on gender equality and which statistics suggests that the Quantum environment equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) could be improved. A summary of the main outcomes of that survey can be viewed in the video below.

The Working Group has now launched a second survey on the state of EDI within the European quantum community. This survey will not only monitor developments since the previous survey, but will also give a broader view across different diversity dimensions.

Thank you for taking the time to answer this survey!