Conference committees and symposia chairs should follow Nature's lead and be more open and proactive about gender balance (Nature 491, 495; 2012).

Publishing an online declaration of gender-balance policy would help. Data from each of the past, say, three meetings could also be posted online to indicate the percentage of women who were registrants, invited plenary and keynote speakers, session speakers, programme committee members, or session chairs. If there is a significant gap between the percentage of women attending the conference and the overall percentage of women speakers or committee members, then a policy overhaul may be called for.