ADVANCEGeo

IGEN Engagement

The ADVANCEGeo which is an IGEN partner, supports development of a workplace climate intervention program for academic STEM departments and training programs to equip individuals and teams with the skills to self-reflect on how identity and positionality influence lived experiences during career trajectories, perceptions of workplace climate, responsibility, and accountability; recognize hostile and exclusionary behaviors when they occur; implement interventions to interrupt these behaviors and reduce their harm; provide intentional support to individuals harmed and attend to how these incidences affect relationships and trust in the scientific community; and design, implement, and reevaluate practices and policies to build inclusive, thriving workplace environments.

About the Organization

The ADVANCEGeo program aims to catalyze behavioral and cultural change through interventions at the individual and collective level, including bystander intervention education, and organizationally through the development of ethical codes of conduct that frame harassment, bullying, and discrimination as scientific misconduct. 

To date, ADVANCEGeo has offered trainings to over 2,000 individuals with a dedicated multidisciplinary team of trainers and created a public resources website hosted by the Science Education Research Center at Carleton College summarizing social science research and identifying strategies for responding to hostile behaviors and building inclusive research environments, including in fieldwork settings, etc. The research team has also documented greater frequencies of hostile behaviors for groups persistently excluded from the geosciences and ecological sciences. These same groups reported being more likely to leave their institutions or their disciplines altogether, with implications for retention.