CODE OF CONDUCT

The Living Machines Conference is dedicated to providing a harassment-free event experience for everyone, regardless of age, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, nationality, race or religion. We expect our attendees to contribute to a professional and respectful atmosphere. All attendees, speakers, exhibitors, organizers and volunteers are required to comply with the Living Machines Code of Conduct both at the conference and during conference-related activities. Organizers and volunteers will enforce this code throughout the event to ensure a safe, inclusive and welcoming environment for everyone.

All participants, including attendees, speakers, exhibitors, organizers and volunteers, are expected to:

• Treat each other with respect and consideration, valuing a diversity of views and opinions
• Behave in a professional manner
• Communicate openly, critiquing ideas rather than individuals
• Be kind to others, do not insult or put down other attendees
• Ask for explicit consent from the speaker and organizer prior to publishing presentation recordings or video clips on any kind of media or platform (e.g scientific publications, social media or conference websites). Posting some slides (or parts thereof) on social media (e.g. X, Facebook, Instagram etc) helps promote scientific discussion and is permitted unless the speaker indicates at the beginning of their talk that they are not comfortable with that

Inappropriate behavior and harassment of conference participants in any form will not be tolerated. These include but are not limited to:

• Offensive verbal comments related to gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, national origin or religion
• Inappropriate use of sexual language, nudity and/or sexual images in public spaces or in presentations
• Deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, bullying, discrimination, photography or recording without consent
• Sustained disruption of talks or other contents
• Unwelcome sexual attention
• Trolling
• Copying, redistributing or using data from presentations without permission from the authors
• Unauthorized access or malicious changes to the conference website, conference hosting tools or any related systems

As the Living Machines Conference is attended by a wide spectrum of participants, please be aware of the power dynamic between PIs, post doctoral fellows and students and how that dynamic may affect interactions amongst attendees.

Participants asked to stop any harassing behavior are expected to comply immediately. If a participant continues to engage in harassing behavior, the conference organizers retain the right to take any actions to keep the event a welcoming environment for all participants. This includes (but is not limited to):

• Warning the offender
• Expulsion from the conference with no refund
• Barring attendance from future Living Machines conferences

Appropriate legal action will be taken against violators where applicable.

If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of conference staff immediately. Conference staff can be identified as they’ll be wearing branded clothing and/or badges. Concerns can also be directed digitally to info-livingmachines2024@cmu.edu.

Conference staff will be happy to help participants contact venue security or local law enforcement, provide escorts, or otherwise assist those experiencing harassment to feel safe for the duration of the conference. We value your attendance.

All violations of the law should also be reported to local law enforcement. For emergencies, immediately dial 911. 

If you have questions regarding this Conference Code of Conduct or its implementation, please contact the conference organizers at info-livingmachines2024@cmu.edu.

This code of conduct is based on the existing codes of conduct listed below. Both are released under a Creative Commons Zero license for reuse.

https://confcodeofconduct.com/

https://thefutureofmeetings.wordpress.com/code-of-conduct/