Australian and New Zealand Optical Society    

Equity and Diversity Policy


The Australian Optical Society is committed to the principles of equity and diversity. These principles are integral to our desire to promote excellence and fairness, and to encourage interest in optics across the community.

Specifically, we aim to:

  • Diversity in our membership, in terms of gender, race, sexuality, disability, age, socio-economic status, and culture
  • Ensure equitable treatment for all our membership
  • Ensure that our diverse membership feels included in all events and aspects of the AOS
  • Take positive action to address inequity and exclusion, both within the AOS, and the broader optics community, including internationally
  • Lead by example

The conferences and events associated with the AOS must also be run according to these principles.

Requirements for conferences and events run or sponsored by the AOS

  1. The conferences or events must have a publicly available policy addressing equity and diversity, and a Code of Conduct.
  2. The policy must ensure that the diversity of the community which the conference serves is appropriately represented in all aspects of the conference. This includes the composition of committees, invited speakers and session chairs. Conferences are encouraged to develop and share databases of suitable speakers from underrepresented groups.
  3. The conference must collect data on the representation of women (and potentially other underrepresented groups), and report them to the AOS after the conference.
  4. Session chairs must be instructed to ensure that discussions and questions are conducted respectfully, and that there is equitable opportunity to contribute to discussion.
  5. Conference organisers must consider making arrangements that are family friendly.

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Conference participants and organisers are encouraged to sign a pledge committing them to only accept invitations to conferences that commit to addressing inequity. 

For more detailed discussion AOS refers you to PLOS and Astro.

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