Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are still important challenges in academia. To identify key DEI issues in brain sciences worldwide and develop specific strategies, a group of leading scientists has founded the ALBA Network to combat diversity and inclusion in research and academia. I will introduce the network and its main activities, and will discuss how stress -in general, and the one triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic in particular- can have a particularly negative impact in the lives and careers of women and under-represented groups. To illustrate the latter, I will refer to work in our lab and the broader literature reporting how stress can affect social behaviors as well as a differential impact in different individuals.|full_html