Code of Conduct

Motivation

We are committed to providing an inclusive and safe summer school experience to all participants, both in-person and online. Our goal is to make everyone feel welcome and appreciated, independently of their background, experience and identity, and able to learn as much as possible from the school.

Some of you are postdocs; some are masters students. Your majors range from physics to maths, computer science and engineering. Some have published papers in quantum thermodynamics, but many have not seen a Lindbladian or a Carnot cycle in a long time (or not at all). Some of you will attend the school from home using high speed internet; others had to request a room at a local library or school to have access to stable electricity, and special funding for mobile data. For some of you, the impact of the pandemic was a series of light lockdowns; but for many it had severe mental health repercussions, and some have lost loved ones to the coronavirus, or gone through long covid themselves. Many of you are lucky to have a socio-economical condition that enables you to focus on your studies; there are those among us who have to wade through different barriers every day, be them of access to infrastructure, dealing with discrimination, health issues, a scattered education, or hostile environments. What you all have in common is your love for physics and your enthusiasm for learning: this we treasure, and this we will protect.

We want the summer school to be a place where all participants can breathe, relax, and learn. In order to ensure this we need to place some hard boundaries, in particular around dangerous and harassing behaviour. These are described below. We expect everyone to be at their best behaviour, both in-person and online. We will deal with misconduct swiftly and discreetly.

Encouraged behaviour

  • Ask for help when you don’t understand something. Ask questions before, during and after the lectures!
  • Help your colleagues, when asked. Please don’t offer unsolicited advice unless you are an assistant at the school.
  • Take a break when you need one! The schedule is fairly packed, but we don’t expect everyone to attend every lecture live. The lectures will be publicly available until the heat death of YouTube, you can always catch up later. If you feel like it’s too much, you can go for a walk, or to your room, or exercise… whatever makes you happy. Taking care of yourself is valued, and is never a failure.
  • Be inclusive and welcoming. Let others know if you’re planning a study session, a hike or a board game.
  • Reach out to one of the organisers if you are not feeling well, mentally, emotionally or physically, or if you are having issues with other participants. We will handle it.
  • You are welcome to list your pronouns if you feel comfortable doing so. There is no pressure one way or the other.

Forbidden behaviour

  • Any kind of discriminatory remarks or actions, based for example on gender, race, religion, language and accents, physical appearance, age, health issues, disability, or previous education.
  • Any kind of sexual harassment. If someone made you feel uncomfortable please talk to us. We will protect you and address it with the person. If you’re wondering whether what you’re about to say could be harassment, just… don’t? You can always ask the organisers and we will be happy to clarify it.
  • Transphobic, misogynist and racist remarks in particular will not be tolerated.
  • Covid conspiracy theories will not be tolerated. As mentioned above, some people here lost loved ones to the coronavirus.
  • Note that this list is not exhaustive. If you really need a valve for meanness, you can mock people’s favourite football club. Or you can always say nothing.

Enforcement

Depending on the gravity of what happened, we may first talk to the offenders and see if an understanding can be reached. If that’s not the case, the participant will be expelled.

Health considerations

  • As stated everywhere else, this is a covid certificate event. If you are not fully vaccinated, you will have to get tested every two days. We will provide access to testing centres.
  • We don’t know yet if we will require masks during the lectures: everyone will be vaccinated or have just tested negative, so in principle it should be ok. However, as we have participants arriving from all over Europe, we may require masks in the first couple of days, to make sure we don’t have a breakout from all the travel. We will monitor the health situation and communicate our decision shortly before the school. Either way, we will provide masks.
  • If you want to wear a mask yourself, this is encouraged. If you feel safer watching the lecture on YouTube from your room or outside, that’s totally fine.
  • If you start having covid- or cold-like symptoms, immediately wear a mask, return to your room, and contact one of the organisers. We will take care of you.
  • Please make sure that you have health insurance valid in Switzerland (like the European health card). If you don’t, let us know in advance so that we are prepared.
  • If you told us that you have additional requirements or allergies, we told so to the hotel. We may give you a cool sticker to wear on your badge so that they know not to serve you anything dangerous.

After this last year and a half, we are all so tired. Let’s be kind to each other.