Here at Physics World we love to cover the latest research into physics, which can stretch from the esoteric to the hugely practical. But we don’t shy away from covering more general, societal issues that affect physicists, be it careers, education, policy or funding. In March, however, for the first time we devoted the whole issue of Physics World magazine to looking at ways of making physics a more “inclusive” discipline
The issue generated a lot of reaction, ranging from e-mails and letters to comments on the website, in person and on social media. In this podcast, Physics World editor Matin Durrani and careers editor Margaret Harris address some of the responses from the physics community – both good and bad – to that special issue in the company of Andrew Glester from The Cosmic Shed podcast.
Much of that reaction was in response to Louise Mayor’s feature “Where people and particles collide” on what it is like to be in a gender or sexual minority at the CERN particle-physics lab, which got picked up widely elsewhere in the media. But we also discuss reader thoughts on the article on unconscious bias, on the feature on “microaggressions” in the workplace and why Physics World devoted a whole issue to this topic in the first place.
