Equal opportunities. MERIT will contribute significantly to strengthen European international competitiveness in the scientific field and improve working conditions for researchers at all levels of their career. The Czech central state authorities who serve as the founders of research and development institutions and others took the initiative to respect and enforce the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers back in 20065. Implementing partners involved in MERIT will offer the fellows working conditions in line with those two documents. The principle of non-discrimination is also specified in the Czech Labour Code. Moreover, SIC and all Implementing partners have Ethic Codes or similar that ensure an equal opportunities policy. No researcher will be discriminated against based on gender, age, ethnicity, nationality or social origin, religion or belief, sexual orientation, language, disability (both physical and mental), political opinion, or social or economic conditions. • At the Programme level: SIC created and nominated the members of the Equality and Diversity Committee to address diversity aspects and inclusion and the respect of people of different racial ethnic groups, ages, sexual orientation, gender identity, etc. XXX also nominated an Ombudsperson for MERIT who will individually address and solve any issues raised by fellows, including the issues connected to diversity and equal opportunities. • At the level of the dissemination of the calls: MERIT will be open to any postdoctoral researchers around the world provided they comply with the mobility rule. All candidates will have equal conditions of access to information about the Programme on the MERIT website and professional support staff will be available to them. One of the roles of the Equality and Diversity Committee will be to review the call documents and procedures in order to prevent any kind of unconscious bias. MERIT will support and welcome researchers at risk (see different panels including Researchers at risk in Table 3). The calls will be advertised in the Science4Refugees initiative on the EURAXESS portal and through the network of NGOs and other partners of the Inspireurope project. SIC will advertise calls widely, explicitly promote diversity, and encourage women to apply by highlighting the number of female researchers already employed in some of the Implementing partners and by demonstrating how the gender balance and diversity in a fellowship c...
