Childcare Policy

The MacDiarmid Institute recognizes that many of our events require people to take time away from their family responsibilities, and that this can be an additional burden and barrier to inclusion of people at particular points in their career. We also recognize the other caring responsibilities that all people have, at different times.

Our commitment is as follows:

We will provide childcare support for all MacDiarmid events, such as the annual symposium, that require overnight travel. This may take the form of:

Reimbursement of additional (e.g. after-school) childcare costs
A small koha for family members, e.g. grandparents, who take on additional responsibilities to make travel possible
Provision of a childcare professional onsite for larger events (e.g. AMN) where there is sufficient need.

For AMN conferences:

The availability of childcare options (whether paid or unpaid) will be advertised on the conference website at the time of abstract submission, and expressions of interest will be possible at the time of registration.

For cluster and theme meetings:

Organisers will be required to advertise this policy at the time of organisation and negotiate where desired and possible the provision of onsite childcare.

We will make what accommodations we can, in the case that other caring responsibilities impact on the ability of our investigators to attend MacDiarmid Institute events. As such responsibilities are naturally less systemic than childcare needs, the appropriate support will need to be discussed with a member of the leadership team.

In all cases, we recognize that the removal of barriers to participation requires proactive and transparently available support, and we will work to provide the necessary information well in advance of all events.