Workshop report: Improving the workplace/science practice and ethics

This workshop addressed two closely related issues both from a general perspective and from the point of view of the activities and development of women physicists. The two aspects are related to “best practices in science”: best practices for the interaction, collaboration, recognition, and promotion of the members of the scientific community and for the way that the community addresses the problems it studies. The first session was devoted to research integrity and started with a talk by Tony Meyer, Europe Representative and Research Integrity Officer of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. The second session was devoted to discussing ways to improve the workplace and started with talks by Jennifer Dyer, Head of Diversity of the UK Institute of Physics, and Val Gibson, University Gender Equality Champion and Professor at the University of Cambridge. They talked about two initiatives in the UK: Project Juno for physics departments and the Athena Swan Charter for research institutions at large. Based on the information collected in these two sessions and on the subsequent discussions, the third session was devoted to working on the “Waterloo Charter for Women in Physics,” a declaration of principles and charter of good practices, where goals are to enable women to succeed within the existing structures where physics is practiced and to allow diversity to be accepted and develop fully.