Issues related to harassment and workplace climate in the entertainment industry, the scientific enterprise, politics, journalism, and other sectors have made headlines in the U.S. and around the globe in the past few years. Within the scientific community, many efforts are already underway from professional societies to government agencies who are taking the lead to promote a positive culture and protect its community members. Specifically, within the geosciences, the American Geosciences Institute has announced its guidelines for the societies to build their own strategies and policies. The American Geophysical Union has introduced many proactive initiatives which include conversations within academic leadership to specific prevention and intervention programs at its annual meeting. For some years now the IAPG has launched initiatives aimed at understanding the problem and sensitizing the scientific community about negative consequences in ethical and social terms. The IAPG campaign "Zero tolerance towards Harassment and Discrimination" has the goal to promote activities to favour a high level of professionalism and to fight harassment and discrimination within the geoscience community through the cooperation with other geoscience organizations The EGU is starting the discussion in Europe with sessions on sexual harassment and workplace climate issues becoming increasingly prevalent at both the EGU General Assembly and in EGU Blogs.
This town hall will feature invited panelists from AGI, AGU, IAPG, and EGU for discussions of the work in progress as well as audience input, suggestions to combat workplace issue, and Q&A. The goal of the townhall is to have the global geoscience community begin to actively coalesce around a generally accepted set of standards regardless of nationality or parent organization.