Supporting Diverse Researchers

The Qualia Structure team is committed to nurturing a diverse community of researchers, including early-career researchers and those raising children.

On this page, we share information and columns that we hope will be useful to you.

Conference Travel with Children: Are the Costs Covered? (Column 01, July 25, 2023)

 Now that the COVID-19 pandemic has finally subsided, more and more of us are attending conferences in person again. However, some researchers — women researchers in particular — may find themselves troubled by the costs of bringing a small child along.

 “My child is too young to be left at home while I am away on a trip.”

 “But taking my child with me means extra travel and accommodation costs.”

 “With more than one child, I would need another adult to come along, or I could not get any work done at the destination.”

 These difficulties, particular to researchers raising families, tend in practice to fall disproportionately on women.

 “I can cover domestic trips out of my own pocket, but the cost of bringing my child on an overseas invited lecture is simply too high, so I will have to decline.”

 As long as researchers with childcare responsibilities are left to carry this handicap alone, is there not a risk that the proportion of women researchers in each field will remain low?

 Science recently ran a feature article reporting that in Europe and North America a number of universities and research institutions are coming to recognize these child-related costs as legitimate expenses, and are putting support schemes in place.

 Japan, unfortunately, has been slower to establish such systems.

 The Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), however, offers a business travel support program for researchers who are raising children: where certain conditions are met, the program covers expenses such as a child’s travel costs.

 We hope that support programs of this kind will spread to many more universities and research institutions in Japan, so that researchers at every life stage and with every lifestyle can thrive.

 The Qualia Structure team will continue to share information useful to women and early-career researchers and to contribute to improving the research environment in Japan.