At Cosmoversity we understand that there could be many reasons why you would want to organise an academic conference: you get to play a key role in developing or shedding light on your chosen field, you can read papers, hand-pick speakers, and establish yourself amongst your peers. Many academics, however, will be wholly unfamiliar with how to tackle the administrative side of a conference and what actually goes into successfully organising such events. The prospect of attempting to do so will probably fill you with dread. You will, however, have a good idea about what papers are really pushing boundaries and who is carrying out ground-breaking research.
Cosmovesity team can help institutes with the key practical considerations of planning and delivering academic conferences for first-time organisers.
Planning and running an academic conference is hard work. It requires you to invest a great deal of time and effort. Having said that, it is an immensely rewarding exercise that looks impressive on your academic CV, can help you further establish yourself in your particular field as well as providing access to your peers.
The key to a successful conference is a happy delegate. This means that you need to put them first when it comes to planning. It’s hard to do this unless you know who your audience is and what they want. The first exercise when it comes to planning an academic conference is audience research. Who are your target audience? What topics interest them? What have they seen before? What can you do differently to deliver genuine value? What speakers would engage them? Where would they be prepared to travel to in order to attend your conference?
You are likely to want to pitch your conference at academics and researchers, but consider if your primary focus is on attracting postgraduates or scholars.
When it comes to choosing a topic for your conference, you have the difficult task of finding the right balance between mass appeal and niche focus. You want to attract as many delegates as possible but you also need your conference to have a clear and coherent focus. You will also want to select the topic from a field that you have a genuine interest in. As well as finding a topic that strikes the right balance, you also need to find an original angle on it so that your conference is varied and engaging.
Keeping on budget, avoiding making a loss, and charging the right amount are all very important elements and difficult to get right.
To charge or not to charge, that is the question. Will your event be free or will you charge delegates a fee? If so, how much? A well-organised engaging event with some high profile speakers is worth paying for. You will also find that you have lots of outgoings that you need to cover.
There are a number of costs associated with an academic conference. As well as venue hire and catering, you must consider the outgoings associated with getting your speakers to attend. Dr. Nadine Muller offers a useful overview of Academic Conference Costs.
As tempting as it can be to fly-over keynote speakers from across the globe, always remember the costs involved. It is still possible to find high-quality speakers closer to home and stay on budget.
From the outset, you need to consider how you will fund the event. There are a number of funding options available to you from professional bodies in your field to publishers to AHRC grants. Many universities will also have funds set aside for researcher-led initiatives. It may even be an option to look for a relevant sponsor – a business that has a strong tie to your field of research.
You should never underestimate how much time it takes to plan and run an academic conference. It is therefore advisable to start planning as early as possible. Given that you have to put out a call for academic abstracts and then review them, it is recommended that you start planning 6 to 12 months before you plan to hold the conference.
The following is an overview of the milestones you have to complete in the run up to the conference:
Publish and share the conference programme with details of all sessions
When setting a date for your academic conference, you need to check that there are no clashes with any other conferences or events. You will then want to check the availability of your keynote speakers. Once you have a date in mind, you then need find a suitable venue with availability.
Academic conferences happen throughout the year both in term time and in holidays. Be sure to get the date locked in early and start promotion as soon as possible.
If you are going to organise and run the conference yourself, you will need a dedicated team to help you. This will be a combination of peers to help you review abstracts as well as a number of people to support you in the organisation, administration and financial aspects of the event. It’s important that everyone is given clearly defined roles. This should also make it easier to delegate tasks. Make sure someone is in charge of financial matters and budgeting. You will also need friendly people to man the registration desk on the day of the event.
With your first few academic conferences, it makes sense to stick to a smaller scale. Keep the conference to a single day event with half a dozen speakers in a single strand. In the future, you can look to increase the number of speakers, run parallel sessions and even spread it over two days.
However, even within a one day conference there is plenty of potential to deliver a varied and engaging schedule, using different formats. You need to decide on the number of slots you will have in the day and how many sessions this equates to – this should include 20 minute presentation slots and panel discussions.
As well as having speakers deliver twenty minute presentations and allowing for q&as / discussion time after, you may also want to implement other formats such as panels as well as separate round-tables and workshops if appropriate.
When it comes to scheduling your academic conference, it’s important to leave plenty of time for networking. More on this later, but regular breaks with coffee and tea and time to chat are strongly recommended.
As well as having a single speaker deliver a presentation and then having a discussion, you can also make use of panels where you get more speakers together to discuss topics. You will need someone to chair to make sure the session format is adhered to. There are different ways of setting up panels including plenary panels where you have several speakers on the stage together.
Dr. Nadine Muller in her guide to academia series goes into some detail on the various formats academic conference can take. She suggests having panel formats, “For example: 5 panel sessions with 3 parallel panels of 3 papers.” It’s important to bear in mind that panels needs to be chaired by a suitable person and that by running parallel panels you risk disappointing people who can’t attend both.
Whether your conference is free or you are charging, you should still get people to register for the event. We have covered all aspects of event registration in detail in our post on Event Ticketing Platforms, but in summary you need an easy to use, affordable and fit-to-purpose registration platform and process. You should include a section for any dietary requirements in the academic conference registration form so that you can plan your catering.
On the day of the conference, you will need to have a registration area that can be used to provide delegates with name badges, conference packs and any additional information they require.
When it comes to organising an academic conference, the speakers are the most important aspect. The majority of presenters will be found through an open call for papers and from within your institute, however, you may also want to select keynote speakers. It is vital that you select speakers that are able to grasp and maintain the attention an audience with original and interesting content, presented in an engaging manner.
As a conference organiser you want evidence that the speaker can deliver an engaging presentation. Try to find out as much as possible about their subject area and level of experience.
We examine some of the tools you can use to find the speakers to make your academic conference a success.
Variety & Diversity
As a conference organiser your aim is to create as interesting and stimulating an event as possible. As we’ve mentioned the quality of the speakers is key, but variety is also crucial. Don’t choose too many talks from the same area of research. Think about what kind of speakers and presentations you want. It can be beneficial to have a mixture of senior academics, keynote speakers with wider appeal as well as some junior researchers just starting out in their career.
Keynote Speakers
The right keynote speaker, usually an eminent scholar in the field, will help attract delegates and set the tone for your research conference. If budget allows you may want to select an international keynote speaker for your conference. With overseas speakers, you may find that you need to assist them with their UK visa application by providing relevant paperwork. Remember – you will be covering travel costs.
Academic Conference Chair
Having a chair for your conference is important – they help keep sessions on track and can host panel discussions. They can also introduce speakers.
Confirming with Speakers
Once you have selected your speakers, you will need to confirm with them in writing. You will also need to request any further details as to the content of their presentations as well as a bio. Make sure that any keynote speakers have also confirmed.
Remember: Have a list of backup speakers in case of cancellation
Part of the process of finding high quality speakers is putting out an open call for papers or abstracts around your chosen topic. You will need to set a deadline, even if it’s a fake one, to start the ball rolling. You can then extend this deadline if you don’t see the number or quality of abstracts you were expecting. Make sure your final call for papers leaves you enough time to programme your conference.
When issuing your call for papers you should clearly outline the required topics in line with your conference vision. It should include a deadline and set-out when you will confirm the accepted papers, the speakers and announce the programme.
It is beneficial to include some pointers so that you receive abstracts that are easily appraised. You may want to include a word limit and ask that they cover their research context, methodology and how they might present their project. You will need to confirm with them that you have received the abstract.
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