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| Nisha Doshi Senior Digital Development Publisher |
In the run-up to my maternity leave a couple of years ago, I
was keen to identify as many ways as possible to keep in touch with colleagues
and friends at work and in the wider academic publishing industry, and to keep
up-to-date with news and developments in publishing and scholarly comms. I had
attended several medical conferences in my former life as a commissioning
editor of medical books and I had been delighted to be able to meet there with clinicians
who were also new parents – mums and dads who had been able to participate in
the conference thanks to the existence of a ‘parent and baby’ room, where they
could listen to a live feed of conference proceedings while looking after their
baby, and also network with their colleagues at coffee breaks, poster sessions
etc. At the time I wasn’t thinking ahead particularly to having a child of my
own but I was struck by comments from several of these mums and dads about how
valuable it was to be able to combine the demands and constraints of parenting
a young baby with the benefits of continuing to be a part of their clinical and
academic community.
Fast forward to my own maternity leave – I tried to keep
up-to-date as much as possible by following industry events on twitter, reading
blogs and newsletters, and so forth. However, a twitter feed really isn’t the
same as being at an event in person and I wasn’t able to identify any scholarly
comms conferences or events that were explicitly welcoming to new mums with
babies. Attached to my little one pretty much 24/7 (he wasn’t the easiest of
babies!), I felt rather isolated from the academic publishing community and
commented to a few colleagues/twitter contacts about how great it would be if
we could replicate the facilities provided at conferences in other disciplines.
The response I got, quite reasonably, was that academic publishing doesn’t have
the resources of clinical medicine and this wouldn’t really be practical.
Fast forward further to a call for ideas at Cambridge
University Press for next year’s University Press Redux event – I tentatively
suggested the possibility of a facility to enable parents to attend, perhaps
particularly parents of young babies. I was delighted that this idea chimed
with the views of the conference organisers and even more pleased to learn that
the provision of ‘mum and baby’ rooms was in fact a norm in other academic
disciplines beyond medicine. In fact, in North America, it appears that 94%
of scientific conferences provide a lactation/breastfeeding room while 68%
provide childcare support. While it might be assumed that the need is
greater in the US than in the UK, where parents tend to take longer periods of
parental leave, it could also be argued that the feeling of isolation from the
work community and the sense (perceived or actual) of career disadvantage
associated with longer periods of parental leave creates an equal need for
facilities for new parents at conferences held in the UK.
Next year’s University Press Redux Conference will be held
at Churchill College, Cambridge, UK on 17-18 March.
Whilst the college are unable to allow full childcare facilities on site at
this time due to students revising for exams, I am delighted to say that, in a
bid to support new parents, they have offered to make a room available for the
use of parents with babies (up to a maximum age of 12 months) who wish to
attend the event. The room will have a live feed to the main conference
sessions, which means parents can participate in the proceedings, whilst still
looking after their little person’s needs. Of course, parents and babies
would also be welcome to participate in coffee breaks, meals and so forth in order
to spend time with their colleagues and new acquaintances. We would also
ensure questions were invited from and taken from the ‘parent and baby room’ as
well as from the main session rooms. Parents would need to supervise
their babies at all times and also be mindful that students will be revising
for exams in close proximity to the room.
The organisers of Redux 2020 (The Association of Learned& Professional Society Publishers and Cambridge University Press) would
really love to be able to make this work and to enable new parents to be full
participants of next year’s event. So,
if this facility is something that would be of use to you or you would like
further details then please register your interest by Friday 30 August with me, Nisha Doshi, Senior Digital Development Publisher, Cambridge University Press at ndoshi@cambridge.org or comment below.
Booking for the above event will open in the autumn. View more details and the provisional programme here.
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