Inequality has become a core topic of forest-related research: Forest scholars have investigated how socio-economic and gender inequalities impact on forest use, how power asymmetries shape forest politics and governance, and how gendered professional norms contribute to the marginalization of women in forest industry and education. However, to what extent the forest science community is itself structured by inequality and what effect this may have has so far not been explored.

We address this gap by analysing the diversity of actors involved global forest science conferences, which we deem a crucial space of research communication and knowledge circulation. Our study covers the past three World Congresses of the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) that took place in 2010, 2014 and 2019. We examine the social structure of these events with a focus on the dimensions of gender and geography, based on scholars' sex and affiliation, and disaggregated by different conference roles (members of congress scientific committees, keynote/plenum speakers, session chairs and presenters).

Our results show that the actor composition notably diversified over the past decade, with more women and scholars from Southern world regions performing active roles in the congresses. However, male forest scientists based in the Global North continue to dominate the events in numerical terms. Significant gender and geography-related inequalities persist, and they remain particularly pronounced in actor groups with high agenda-setting and gate-keeping power.

Our analysis points at social patterns within the forest science community that are likely to impact on the knowledge it generates.

To make global forest science conferences a more inclusive space of scholarly exchange, we suggest two sorts of ‘affirmative action’ in the context of conference organisation: The first is to tackle ‘backstage’ inequalities by involving more scientists from under-represented groups as members of congress scientific committees and session chairs. The second is to make conscious choices about place, as our analysis corroborates the finding that for some groups of scholars, the congress location immensely impacts on their chances to take part.

Our study contributes to the emergent scholarship on conferences which we conceptualise as constituting spaces of scientific fields. Revealing inequalities in IUFRO World Congresses, we aim at stimulating a critical-constructive reflection among members of the forest research community.

不平等已成为与森林有关的研究的核心主题：森林学者研究了社会经济和性别不平等如何影响森林使用，权力不对称如何塑造森林政治和治理以及性别平等的专业规范如何导致森林中妇女的边缘化工业和教育。但是，森林科学共同体本身在多大程度上由不平等构成，迄今尚未探讨这种影响可能产生什么影响。

我们通过分析参与全球森林科学会议的参与者的多样性来解决这一差距，我们认为这是研究交流和知识流通的关键空间。我们的研究涵盖了2010年，2014年和2019年国际森林研究组织联盟（IUFRO）的过去三届世界大会。我们根据性别和地理的维度，研究了这些事件的社会结构。学者的性别和隶属关系，并按不同的会议角色（国会科学委员会成员，主旨/全体发言人，会议主席和演讲者）分类。

我们的研究结果表明，在过去的十年中，演员组成明显多样化，来自南方世界地区的更多女性和学者在国会中扮演着积极的角色。但是，全球北部的雄性森林科学家仍在数字上主导着这一事件。性别和地理相关的严重不平等现象仍然存在，在议程制定和关门权较高的演员团体中，这种不平等现象尤为突出。

我们的分析指出了森林科学界内部的社会模式，这些社会模式可能会对其所产生的知识产生影响。

为了使全球森林科学会议成为更具包容性的学术交流空间，我们建议在会议组织的背景下采取两种“平权行动”：第一种是通过让来自代表性不足的团体的更多科学家作为成员来解决“后台”不平等现象。大会科学委员会和会议主席。第二是对地点做出有意识的选择，因为我们的分析证实了这一发现，即对于某些学者群体而言，代表大会的位置极大地影响了他们参加会议的机会。

我们的研究为会议的新兴学术做出了贡献，我们将其概念化为构成科学领域的空间。为了揭示IUFRO世界大会上的不平等现象，我们旨在激发森林研究界成员的批判性建设性反思。