CL 23/2020: A new ad-hoc IMU Committee on Diversity

To: The Adhering Organizations of the International Mathematical Union (IMU)

Dear colleagues,
Recently, there has been a considerable increase of attention devoted worldwide to the issues of diversity and inclusion. Many institutions and organizations have recognized the need to re-assess their relationship to the issues of diversity and inclusion.

In the past few years, there has been increased attention to diversity in the IMU.
This has been combined with an increased consideration of conflicts of interest and implicit biases. These changes have certainly improved the operations of the IMU.

To build on this, the Executive Committee (EC) of the IMU has decided to create an ad hoc committee called the Committee on Diversity (CoD) that can offer us advice regarding diversity and inclusion.

The purpose of CoD is threefold:
1. Assess how the IMU has performed to date
2. Offer advice on how we can improve our performance
3. Offer advice on how our members (the Adhering Organizations) can improve their performance nationally.

CoD's final report will first be discussed by the EC. The EC will then make its recommendations to be discussed at the General Assembly in St Petersburg prior to the ICM 2022.

The work of the committee will be public, and the committee will be free to seek advice and engage in discussions wherever it finds suitable.

The chair of CoD is Robert Bryant (Duke University, US), and his email address for this is <chair@cod.mathunion.org>. Other members are: