Making conferences in the plant sciences more inclusive through community recommendations

An unwelcoming climate and culture at scientific conferences is an obstacle to retaining scientists with marginalized identities. Here we describe how a number of professional societies in the plant sciences, mostly based in the United States, collaborated on a project called ROOT & SHOOT (short for Rooting Out Oppression Together and SHaring Our Outcomes Transparently) to make conferences in the field more inclusive. The guidelines we developed, and our efforts to implement them in 2023 and 2024, are summarized here to assist other conference organizers with creating more inclusive conferences.