The impact of COVID‐19 lock‐downs for European (female) immunologists – our views as members of the EFIS gender and diversity task force

Abstract

A task force on “Gender and diversity” was recently founded by the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS). It aims at coordinating action on matters pertinent to our community that have a European (and beyond) dimension, in our case we want to promote diversity with respect to gender and ethnicity in immunology. Our group met for the first time in Belgrade, Serbia, in January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic prevented a second in- person meeting, which we then scheduled to take place virtually in July 2020. In this article, we reflect on the effects and challenges of COVID-19 measurements for immunologists, and for female immunologists in particular, and immunology as a field.