Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Guidelines for ICSE

Rashina Hoda, Muneera Bano, Anthony Ventresque - EDI Co-chairs, ICSE 2027

ICSE aspires to be a conference where anyone in the software engineering community can participate, contribute, and lead. This page explains what equity, diversity and inclusion mean for ICSE, and offers guidance and recommendations for organisers, chairs, reviewers, presenters, and attendees. They describe good practice that the community is encouraged to adopt.

Why this matters at ICSE

The IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE) is the flagship conference of the software engineering research and practice community. A conference of this standing carries a responsibility that goes beyond showcasing excellent research and extends to role modeling excellent inclusive practices. This guidance applies to the main conference, all its tracks, workshops, and co-located events.

This is a living document shared openly with the community. It is intended to be revised as needed in light of what worked, what did not, and community feedback, and handed on to the next organising committee.

Definitions

Diversity is the presence of difference within a group: difference in identity, background, perspective, and ways of working. At ICSE this includes, but is not limited to, gender, geographic location (including underrepresented regions and the Global South), age, career stage (student, early, mid, and senior career), race, ethnicity, faith, culture, language, disability, neurodivergence, sexual orientation, socio-economic background, and disciplinary orientation (technical, human and social, and socio-technical research; qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods). Diversity means valuing these differences and recognising the range of talent, experience, and viewpoint they bring to the community.

Equity is fairness of access, opportunity, and outcome. People arrive at ICSE from very different starting points, shaped by personal background, geography, resources, and circumstances. Equity means working to identify and remove the barriers, biases, and structural obstacles that make it harder for some groups to participate in, contribute to, lead, and benefit from ICSE, and providing additional or tailored support where needed to help close those gaps.

Inclusion is the active, ongoing practice of ensuring that people from diverse backgrounds feel welcome, safe, respected, and genuinely able to take part: not merely present in the room, but heard, valued, and able to influence outcomes. Inclusion is what turns a diverse gathering into a functioning community, and it is the lived, day-to-day experience of the conference for every attendee.

Together, EDI describes both a set of values and a set of practices: recognising and welcoming difference, removing barriers to fair participation, and creating an environment where everyone can genuinely take part.

People

A conference is by the people and for the people. The community that organises, reviews, speaks at, and attends ICSE shapes whose perspectives come to define the field, and so we encourage organisers to keep the following aims in view:

Aims

Proactively diversify the people who organise, participate in, and benefit from ICSE.
Aim for balanced representation across the sub-areas of software engineering research: technical, human and social, and socio-technical aspects; quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods; basic and blue-sky research, empirical works, tools and artefact development, theory development, and guidelines and policy development; exploratory research and validation studies, etc.
Aim for balanced representation across diversity characteristics (see definition above):
in the ICSE Steering Committee and those of its co-located conferences;
in the organising committees of ICSE, its tracks, workshops, and its co-located conferences and events;
in the program committees and among reviewers of all tracks, workshops, and co-located conferences and events;
among keynote speakers across the conference week;
among panellists on all panels – big and small.
As a useful rule of thumb, it is worth pausing whenever a committee, panel, or keynote line-up is drawn overwhelmingly from a single gender, a single region, or a single career stage, and asking what more could be done to broaden it.

Recommendations for putting this into practice

The recommendations below include suggestions for all the chairs where applicable, offered as a guide rather than an assignment of duties.

Consider diversity alongside expertise. When assembling committees, panels, and speaker line-ups, it helps to note the diversity characteristics of candidates alongside their research excellence and organisational or presentation skills, so representation can be tracked and improved rather than guessed at.
Voluntary self-disclosure. Where possible, ask people how they identify rather than making assumptions about anyone’s identity or background. Make self-disclosure optional and results to be presented in aggregate forms. Demographic monitoring to be kept separate from scientific reviewing or other research processes.
Expand the pool rather than recycling it. Inviting people who served in previous years is convenient but tends to narrow the pool over time. It is worth deliberately seeking out new and diverse candidates, including through the Shadow PC, the Student Mentoring Workshop (SMeW), and the Doctoral Symposium, which are natural pipelines into future reviewing and organising roles, expanding recruitment channels beyond word-of-mouth references.
Consider keeping part of the selection open. Reserving a portion of committee places for a public expression of interest can broaden the pool. This approach was used for SEIP 2026 via LinkedIn and brought in excellent reviewers, one of whom went on to receive a distinguished reviewer award for their service.
Invite people respectfully. Telling someone they are being invited “because we are short on women” is disrespectful and reduces them to a quota. It is better to let EDI considerations work in the background: the person is invited on the strength of their expertise and experience, and happens to also bring a characteristic the team was seeking to balance.
Track representation over time. Keeping records, even informal ones, for committees, reviewers, keynotes, and panels, and sharing high-level findings with the community, helps sustain momentum from year to year.

Access to Participation

Barriers to attending ICSE are often financial, legal, or logistical rather than academic. Geopolitical conditions are beyond the control of ICSE organisers. With that in mind, we encourage organisers to consider the following.

Visas and invitation letters (General Chairs, Registration Chairs). We recommend publishing clear visa guidance on the website well before registration opens, including an expected timeline, issuing letters of invitation promptly on request, and naming a contact for attendees who run into visa difficulties. It also helps to set author-facing deadlines with realistic visa processing times in mind.
Remote presentation as a fallback (Program Chairs). Where feasible, consider offering authors who cannot travel (because of visa refusals, health, disability, caring responsibilities, or safety concerns) a way to present, e.g., remotely or by pre-recorded video with live remote Q&A, so that a visa decision does not become a publication barrier. This might include introducing a different registration category.
Financial support (General Chairs, Finance Chairs). We recommend that registration support and travel grants take need and diversity considerations into account, including region of origin, rather than merit alone, in line with the approach taken at recent ICSE editions.
Students as participants, not labour (Student Volunteers Co-Chairs). Consider factoring motivation, gender, nationality, research area, and institution into student volunteer selection, and scheduling volunteering duties so that volunteers can still attend sessions relevant to their own research.
Carers and families (General Chairs, Local Chairs). Options worth exploring include reliable childcare at the conference venue. Information on whether childcare is confirmed, under investigation, or unavailable should be clear ahead of time (e.g., at least one month before registration opens), including the dietary requirements that the childcare provider may support. Childcare time should start and end with enough buffer time on the day to allow parents to reach and return from the talks they wish to attend or need to present at, a nursing and parenting room at the venue, and a reduced companion rate for personal assistants accompanying an attendee with a disability.
Religious and cultural needs (Local Chairs). Consider making a separate room suitable for prayer and reflection available at the venue. Catering should include vegetarian, vegan, halal, kosher, clearly labelled allergen-aware options, and other allergy-free options (e.g., nut-free, gluten-free etc.), and for social events to include appealing alcohol-free choices. Official social events should include appealing alcohol-free options and be designed so that attendees who do not drink can participate fully and comfortably. Similarly, having quiet areas in functions for those who wish to enjoy ICSE functions in more relaxed settings.
LGBTQ+ attendees (EDI Co-Chairs). Ways to support this include offering pronoun options on name badges and making gender-neutral facilities available at the venue where possible. Attendees are warmly invited to propose affinity meetups through the EDI Co-Chairs.

Content Guidelines

Calls for papers, session themes, keynote and panel topics, and conference communications all signal whose work counts. The following practices are recommended.

Call for Papers language (Chairs). Use clear and welcoming language. Explicitly welcome contributions across all sub-areas of software engineering, all research paradigms, and all contribution types, including replication studies and negative results. Try to avoid idioms and culturally specific references that do not translate well for non-native English speakers. CfPs can be run through inclusive language checkers to ensure they do not inadvertently exclude some populations.
Inclusive terminology (all Chairs, all authors). Where clear alternatives exist, prefer them to outdated or exclusionary technical terms: “allow list” and “deny list” rather than “whitelist” and “blacklist”; “primary/secondary” or “parent/child” rather than “master/slave”; “anonymous review” rather than “blind review”. This follows the ACM Words Matter initiative. It also helps to avoid ableist, gendered, or culturally loaded language in calls, session titles, and communications, and to default to gender-neutral phrasing except when referring to a specific, self-identified individual.
Fair reviewing (Program Chairs, Area Chairs, PC members). Several ICSE tracks use double-anonymous review, and anonymisation extends to company and institution names to help reduce institutional status bias. We encourage reviewers to evaluate contributions on their scientific merit, to stay alert to their own biases (including bias against non-native English writing, unconventional methods, and under-resourced institutions), and to give clear, consistent, empathetic, and constructive feedback. Reviewing with care is one of the most direct ways to make the field more equitable.
Support before submission, not only judgement after (EDI Co-Chairs, SMeW organisers). Authors from underrepresented regions and first-time authors often benefit most from help before the deadline. Building on the Student Mentoring Workshop and the mentoring initiatives piloted around ICSE 2025, we encourage connecting prospective authors with experienced mentors, including support with writing and framing for those working in English as an additional language.
Balanced theme coverage (Program Chairs, Workshop Chairs). When curating themes for tracks, workshops, and panels, it is worth checking that topics relevant to resource-constrained and Global South contexts are represented, not only established high-resource themes.
Representative imagery and examples (Publicity Chairs). Where the conference produces promotional material, sample slides, or photography, aim to reflect the actual diversity of the community rather than a narrow demographic.
Proper credit (Proceedings Chairs). Aim to credit contributions from students, practitioners, and early-career researchers accurately in proceedings, programs, and public communications.

Presentation Guidelines

Talks, panels, posters, and Q&A sessions are more welcoming when they are accessible to the full range of attendees, including those following through captions, interpreters, or a remote link. Presenters and session chairs are encouraged to consider the following.

Share materials in advance. Sharing slides, abstracts, or scripts ahead of a session helps attendees using assistive technology, interpreters, or captioning to prepare.
Design accessible slides. Consider high colour contrast while avoiding jarring colours, use large legible fonts, and simple, well-labelled visuals, and try not to rely on colour alone to convey meaning.
Describe visuals aloud. Verbally describing key figures, charts, and diagrams, rather than assuming everyone can see them, helps attendees with low vision and anyone following by audio or captions.
Pace and clarity. Speaking clearly and at a moderate pace, and going easy on idioms, helps the many attendees who are not native English speakers, as well as captioners and interpreters.
Offer a tech check. Where it can be arranged, an optional rehearsal or tech-check slot (coordinated by the Accessibility and Student Volunteer teams) can help first-time presenters, non-native speakers, and anyone using assistive technology.
Run inclusive Q&A. Using roving microphones or repeating questions before answering helps remote and hard-of-hearing attendees follow along. It also helps to invite questions from across the room and to give space to first-time askers and students rather than defaulting to the most vocal regulars.
Session chairs set the tone. Chairs are well placed to keep Q&A respectful and constructive, to step in when questioning becomes dismissive or aggressive, and to manage time fairly so every presenter gets a full opportunity regardless of seniority.
Panels and keynotes. Diverse line-ups (in gender, geography, career stage, and disciplinary background) and a short advance briefing on inclusive facilitation make for better sessions.
Recordings. Where sessions are recorded, providing captions or transcripts and hosting recordings on accessible platforms extends their reach.

These recommendations draw on ACM SIGACCESS guidance on accessible presentations.

Physical and Digital Accessibility

Accessibility is easy to get right when it is considered from the start, at venue selection and website design, rather than retrofitted at the end. This section draws on the ACM SIGACCESS Accessible Conference Guide and its companion guide for virtual conferences.

Organisation

Appointing one or more Accessibility Chairs early, with responsibility spanning the venue, website, submission and review process, papers, presentations, meals, social events, and the conference experience as a whole, is a valuable first step.
Publishing an Accessibility FAQ page (following the SIGACCESS template) before registration opens helps attendees plan. It can describe the layout of the conference venue, accessible routes and local transport options (including accessible transport from the nearest airport and any public transport serving the venue), and contact details for the Accessibility Chairs.
Asking about accessibility and dietary requirements at registration, then following up directly and respectfully with each attendee who makes a request rather than assuming their needs, is good practice.
Budgeting for accommodations such as sign language interpretation, live captioning (CART), and accessible transport as standard line items from the outset avoids difficult trade-offs later.

The venue and in-person experience

Organisers are encouraged to select venues with step-free access, accessible lifts, and accessible restrooms throughout, and to verify these before contracting. Also consider the suggestions given in the “Access to Participation” section for requirements such as childcare, families, religious and cultural rooms etc.

Beyond what the venue already provides, organisers may wish to:

schedule sessions to minimise walking distances for presenters and attendees with mobility impairments, and encourage attendees to keep walkways clear during and between sessions;
ensure stages and podiums are reachable by wheelchair users, and offer lapel or handheld microphones as alternatives to fixed podium microphones;
confirm catering can handle allergy-sensitive preparation without cross-contamination, alongside the dietary options noted above;
provide sign language interpretation or live captioning based on registrant requests, ideally extending coverage to social events and not only technical sessions (noting that attendees may use different national sign languages, in which case captioning may serve a wider group);
provide a quiet, low-stimulation room for neurodivergent attendees and anyone who needs to step away;
designate a relief area for assistance animals and describe it in the Accessibility FAQ.

Website, proceedings, and virtual participation

We recommend the conference website meet the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 or later, including screen reader compatibility, keyboard-only navigation, adjustable font sizes, and sufficient colour contrast.
For electronic proceedings, HTML content meeting WCAG standards and PDFs that are tagged and checked with standard accessibility tools both help. Authors can be pointed to the SIGACCESS guidance on preparing accessible papers.
Captioning pre-recorded and live-streamed video content makes it accessible to far more people.
For virtual and hybrid sessions, platforms with strong accessibility support work best, with live captioning and sign language interpretation budgeted separately, since these are typically not bundled with standard video-conferencing licences.
Offering a staffed help desk and a monitored email address lets attendees raise access issues in real time during the conference.

Photography, Privacy and Online Safety

Photographs, recordings, and social media posts are part of how a conference shares its energy, but they can create real risks for some attendees. Not everyone can safely be visible online: this includes people at risk in their home countries, those with safety or stalking concerns, and anyone whose personal circumstances make public identification hazardous. We encourage organisers to treat consent and privacy as the default.

Make photography consent visible and easy. Consider offering a clear opt-out at registration and a visible signal on-site (for example, a differently coloured lanyard or a badge sticker) that indicates someone does not wish to be photographed or recorded. Where such a signal is used, communicate to all attendees, photographers, and session chairs what it means and that it must be respected.
Set expectations for official media. Official conference photographers and videographers can be briefed to avoid capturing people who have opted out, to focus on wide or staged shots where individual consent has been given, and to check before close-up or identifiable images.
Give speakers control of their own sessions. Presenters may wish to indicate whether their talk, slides, or Q&A may be photographed, recorded, or live-tweeted. A simple convention (for example, a note on the opening slide, or an announcement by the session chair) helps. Some attendees present unpublished or sensitive work and reasonably prefer it not be circulated.
Encourage respectful sharing on social media. Ask attendees to seek agreement before posting identifiable photos of others, to honour any “do not photograph” signal, and to remove content promptly on request. Consider publishing the conference’s approach and hashtag alongside a short reminder of these norms.
Protect personal data. Attendee lists, contact details, and registration information should be handled in line with the data protection law applicable in the host country and, where relevant, in the countries attendees travel from (for example, the EU’s GDPR, which can apply to attendees from the EU even when the conference is held elsewhere). We recommend collecting only what is needed, being clear at the point of collection about how it will be used and how long it will be kept, and not sharing attendee data with third parties (including sponsors) without explicit consent.
Provide a fast route to raise concerns. Attendees who find an image or post of themselves that they want removed, or who feel a photography or privacy norm has been breached, should have a clear, quick channel to the organisers, connected to the reporting process described below.

Respectful Networking and Welcoming Newcomers

Much of a conference’s value comes from the conversations between sessions, yet informal networking often rewards those who already have connections and can quietly exclude others. Newcomers, students, people from underrepresented regions, and those attending alone or navigating an unfamiliar academic culture or a second language can find these settings the hardest to break into. We encourage the community to make connections easier and more welcoming for everyone.

Run a first-timers’ welcome. Consider a dedicated orientation or welcome session early in the week that explains how the conference works, introduces key events, and gives newcomers a friendly first point of contact. First-timer ribbons on badges (opt-in) can also help others recognise and welcome them. ICSE General Chairs and Finance Chairs should consider this ahead of time.
Offer a buddy or mentoring scheme. Pairing first-time attendees, or attendees from underrepresented regions, with experienced “conference buddies” gives people a familiar face and someone to ask the questions that are awkward to raise in public. This builds naturally on the Student Mentoring Workshop and existing ICSE mentoring initiatives.
Design networking for inclusion, not just mingling. Unstructured receptions favour the already-connected. Structured formats (topic tables, small-group introductions, speed-networking, or “birds of a feather” meetups) give everyone a way in. Consider offering some daytime, alcohol-free networking options, since evening pub-based events are not accessible or comfortable for everyone.
Support affinity-group meetups. Provide space and visibility for groups such as women in SE, LGBTQ+ attendees, researchers with disabilities, and regional communities to meet. Attendees are welcome to propose new meetups through the EDI Co-Chairs.
Encourage senior members to reach outward. Established researchers set the tone. A brief, genuine welcome, an introduction to others, or simply making room in a group conversation for someone standing at its edge makes a large difference. We encourage senior attendees to seek out people they do not already know, and to include students and newcomers in discussions rather than closing ranks with existing collaborators.
Be mindful of power dynamics. Networking often happens across large gaps in seniority and influence. Persistence in seeking someone’s time or attention after they have signalled disinterest, and using a position of influence to pressure or obligate others, are never appropriate. Treat every conversation as one between equals.
Make it easy to find people and topics. Where the conference app or website supports it, features that help attendees find others working on similar topics, or flag that they are open to being approached, lower the barrier to that first conversation.

Reporting, Support, and Escalation

This section describes obligations that genuinely are binding, alongside recommendations for how to communicate them.

ICSE operates under the ACM Policy Against Discrimination and Harassment and the conference Code of Conduct. These are binding on all participants. The Code of Conduct sets behavioural expectations and formal reporting procedures; this EDI guidance sits alongside it and does not replace or override it.
We recommend that reporting channels be live and published on the website from the time the calls for papers are issued, not only during conference week. Reports can be made to the EDI Co-Chairs, through ACM’s online reporting form (identified or anonymous), or in person via ACM SIGSOFT CARES representatives at the conference.
It is good practice to acknowledge reports promptly and to aim for a faster response during the conference itself. (Organisers should describe their actual response process rather than promise a fixed time they cannot guarantee.)
Concerns covered include harassment, discrimination, and bias on any ground, explicitly including sexual orientation and gender identity.
Naming the EDI Co-Chairs on the website with contact details and welcoming questions, suggestions, and proposals (for example, to organise an affinity-group meetup or to raise an access need not otherwise covered here) makes the guidance approachable.

Accountability and Continuous Improvement

We encourage the EDI Co-Chairs to remind the General and Program chairs track and publish high-level anonymised statistics on the diversity of committee members, reviewers, keynote speakers, panellists, and accepted authors, so the community can see progress from year to year.
Preparing a brief post-conference note on what was done, what worked, and what should change, and passing it (with a revised version of this guidance) to the next ICSE organising committee, helps the community learn across editions.
A changelog at the foot of this page can record how the guidance evolves over time.

References

ACM. Words Matter: Alternatives for Charged Terminology in the Computing Profession. ACM Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council. https://www.acm.org/diversity-inclusion/words-matter
ACM. Accessibility. https://www.acm.org/accessibility
ACM. Policy Against Harassment at ACM Activities. https://www.acm.org/about-acm/policy-against-harassment
ACM SIGACCESS. Accessible Conference Guide. https://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/accessible-conference-guide/
ACM SIGACCESS. Accessible Virtual Conferences. https://www.sigaccess.org/accessible-virtual-conferences/
ACM SIGACCESS. Guide to Creating a Conference Accessibility FAQ Page. https://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/creating-a-conference-accessibility-faq-page/
ACM SIGACCESS. ASSETS Accessibility Guidelines (guidance for accessible papers and presentations). https://assets25.sigaccess.org/accessibility_guidelines.html
IEEE Computer Society / ICSE 2025 Organising Committee. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Plan for ICSE 2025. https://conf.researchr.org/attending/icse-2025/Diversity+and+Inclusion+Plan
IEEE Computer Society / ICSE 2026 Organising Committee. Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Plan for ICSE 2026. https://conf.researchr.org/attending/icse-2026/Diversity+and+Inclusion+Plan
ICST 2025 Organising Committee. Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Plan. https://conf.researchr.org/attending/icst-2025/equity-diversity-inclusion-plan
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/
Ashwell, S. J., Baskin, P. K., Christiansen, S. L., DiBari, S. A., Flanagin, A., Frey, T., Jemison, R., and Ricci, M. (2023). Three recommended inclusive language guidelines for scholarly publishing: Words matter. Learned Publishing, 36, 94-99. https://doi.org/10.1002/leap.1527
ICSE 2027. Conference website. https://conf.researchr.org/home/icse-2027

Changelog: v1.0, first published draft for ICSE 2027 (Dublin). Prepared for review by the ICSE 2027 Organising Committee and EDI Co-Chairs.

Last updated: 2026-08-10 18:15 UTC