Diversity and Inclusion

CTBTO is committed to ensuring diversity that reaches across gender, geography and generations. CTBTO’s Provisional Technical Secretariat (PTS) is comprised of approximately 300 staff members from over 90 countries. These include highly dedicated and talented people who may be at the pinnacle of their careers or just starting. 

Acquiring Top Talent Globally

The Provisional Technical Secretariat’s recruitment process looks to attract people from all over the world with a view to ensuring the highest standards of professional expertise, experience, efficiency, competency, and integrity. Recruitment is done on as wide a geographical basis possible and encourages applications from candidates from States Signatories that are under-represented or altogether non-represented.

To reach a wider pool of candidates, the PTS holds virtual career fairs for different geographical regions and widely disseminates vacancy announcements to scientific and technical institutions, States Signatories, the UN and other international agencies. In addition, donor countries now offer the possibility of financing the expenses of qualified candidates, especially those from developing countries, for the Junior Professional Officers (JPO) programme.  

Achieving Gender Parity

The PTS is striving for the equal participation of both men and women at the CTBTO, especially in scientific and technical areas and at the professional and managerial level.

Outreach to potential female candidates happens through virtual career fairs, National Data Centres (NDCs), the Young Professionals Network (YPN), and other channels. The PTS is exploring new networks and means by which to ensure opportunities to join us are widely distributed. 

CTBTO’s Executive Secretary, Dr Robert Floyd, is committed to increasing women’s representation and participation at the Organization by developing policies and initiatives that combat gender inequality, including increasing the number of female participants benefitting from its capacity building programmes to build knowledge, raise awareness, and enable participants to become competitive, high-quality candidates for contributing to the work of the Provisional Technical Secretariat.

CTBTO is also reviewing organizational frameworks to address the inequalities which constrain early career candidates from moving into relevant fields of work beyond internships, and working to ensure underrepresented candidates, especially women and people from developing countries, have access to meaningful job experiences that allow them to contribute to the mission of international organizations.

Why Diversity and Inclusion Matters

An inclusive culture is one that values and learns from diversity in all of its forms. This contributes to an even more vibrant workplace characterized by continuous learning and improvement. To fully benefit from and appreciate diversity, the PTS is encouraged to adopt an approach to learning that helps everyone reach beyond our own cultures, customs and comfort zones. This will help the PTS further embrace an inclusive culture that values everyone and supports all to work to their fullest potential.

Values in Action

As part of his commitment to these ideals, the Executive Secretary became an International Gender Champion in 2021. One of his pledges is to increase the number of female participants benefitting from the CTBTO’s capacity building programmes. Doing so will build knowledge, raise awareness, and enable participants to become competitive, high-quality candidates for contributing to the work of the PTS.

The Executive Secretary is also committed to achieving gender parity for women working in the Professional and higher-level categories. Measurable and meaningful progress has been made, but there is more work to be done to attract diverse talent.

Over the past several years, the PTS has taken the first steps for learning about an enabling work environment through courses such as: Fighting Gender Bias at Work, Unconscious Bias, Eliminating Harassment and Sexual Harassment, Effective Virtual Working, Well-being, and Coping with Stress. This has helped us to create the foundation on which we will continue to build. The PTS has actively supported and participated in the Dignity and Inclusion Learning Initiative launched by the Vienna-based Organizations (VBOs) in 2021. This series of interactive e-learning modules and face-to-face workshops promotes a more enabling workplace. By tackling biases and sharing best practices, strategies, and lessons learned, this initiative helps to reduce ignorance, stigma and discrimination in our working environment.

CTBTO Mentoring Programme

In 2022 CTBTO launched a pilot mentoring programme for early-career women in STEM from the Global South to support the commitments of CTBTO Executive Secretary Dr Robert Floyd as part of the International Gender Champions network and to respond to the needs of CTBTO Youth Group (CYG) members. The rigorous programme included one-on-one mentoring sessions with PTS mentors from the technical divisions, monthly thematic seminars coupled with skill boosters as well as sessions on raising awareness of the CTBTO's mission and activities. The mentees have been able to participate in-person participation at the 2022 Science Diplomacy Symposium in Vienna, Austria, funded by a generous voluntary contribution from the Richard Lounsbery Foundation as well as the 2023 Science and Technology Conference. With support from States Signatories, mentees have been nominated as participants or as observers for CTBTO surrogate inspector trainings thereby contributing to talent pool needed to support CTBTO's verification activities. Through this programme, mentees are also encouraged to further develop themselves and make use of these opportunities as they consider how to contribute to the CTBTO's mission and activities as technical experts or even as prospective staff members.