The fact that few Women cover top positions in the academic world due to sexism is nothing new. It is more interesting to note that at conferences, most invited speakers are men even when there are plenty of competent women scientists to contact.

A group of neuroscientists have launched an important initiative to systematically explore an approach to reduce and overcome the gender balance of academic conferences (BiasWatchNeuro). The final goal is to, at least, obtain the same percentage of women invited speakers at a meeting as the base rate of women in its field.

The base rate for each sub-discipline has been calculated by looking at attendance lists of significant meetings and at the NIH list of investigator-initiated grants. Since August of last year, they analysed more than 90 conferences. Two meetings got their attention. In the first, the calculated base rate was 42% women, but only 12% of invited speakers were female; in the second, the base rate was 17–20% and no women were invited as speakers. What does it mean? In the scientific society, women and their work tend to be invisible.  BiasWatchNeuro and the equivalent in Europe, the Bernstein Conferences, are the first attempts to open the discussion on this topic and to find some pragmatic solutions.