In the fourth of a six-part series, Tim Ellis (PhD Candidate, Teesside University) offers advice to Postgraduates and other ECRs looking to organise a conference. In our last instalment, we talked about creating and disseminating a Call for Papers (CFP).
How to Organise a Postgraduate Conference (Part 3): Getting the Word Out
This week, we discuss the best way to go about organising a programme.
So, the deadline’s come, and you’ve been pleasantly inundated with a good few abstracts and proposals for your CFP- now you need to put together a programme. First things first, decide who will be responsible for assembling your programme; choose a ‘programme steering group’ if you will. Ideally, make sure you have two people for this task. It’s good to have more than one opinion, but equally, there’s truth in the saying ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.’
The steering group should then arrange to sift through the abstracts to make up a programme. Book a room in advance, ideally for the full day, if you don’t already have a room of your own. Make sure you have plenty of desk space. In advance of the meeting make sure that each member of the ‘programme steering group’ has a copy of each submission and has read them before the meeting.
How you pick the abstracts is up to you, and there’s no right way to do this. The problem that we faced was that we initially planned to have three panels of three papers each, which would have meant nine standard speakers and two keynotes. However, we received over twenty abstracts, all of which, without exception, were of a very high standard.
First, we picked out those abstracts which we felt to be of such an outstanding quality that they absolutely had to be included in the programme (Group 1). These abstracts were detailed, very well-written, and moreover, explicitly addressed the terms of the Call for Papers. We then highlighted proposals where, whilst the subject matter was very interesting and the research showed potential, there was need for a little further finessing and honing (Group 2). This then left us with a third group: in this case, these papers were still of a very high standard, but were just a little short of the standards set by the first two groups (Group 3).
We then looked at those abstracts in Group 2 to decide which would join those in Group 1 to make up the programme. The key criterion here was: which abstracts will best make up a programme of coherent panels, where the papers will ‘speak’ to each other effectively? After much deliberation (and we had to be ruthless here), we had our nine papers. We then introduced our initial draft of the programme to our supervisors. Their response was: ‘Well if you have more than 20 or so papers, why don’t you make some more room, and accept a few more?’
In the end, we ended up choosing all of the abstracts in Groups 1 and 2, and we were also able to give some of those in 3 a spot on the programme. In order to accommodate everyone, we went with the option of having parallel panels. Now, not everyone is a fan of this- as it means that your audience will not be able to hear every paper. The counter-argument to this is that it is much better to have more people there (thus giving attendees a greater number of speakers to meet and chat to), than to make sure that no paper is missed. And so, we went with it.
The next thing to do is to send out a draft to your presenters, thanking them, and informing them their paper has been selected. Be prepared at this stage to change the programme- some attendees may only be able to present at certain times, and some attendees may have changed their plans, and may no longer be able to attend. Be flexible! You should also contact those applicants whose abstracts were not selected, and gently let them know that, on this occasion, you have not been able to accept their paper. You can still, of course, invite them to attend your conference!
Once everyone has confirmed attendance, and you have finalised the programme, it’s time for the fun part- you can now publicise the conference programme! Use the same channels and networks you used to get out the Call for Papers. At this stage, it’s a good idea to set up an Eventbrite page for the conference—this is one of the easiest ways to keep track of your attendees, and as we also understand, you can use this to manage your income from registration fees, if you’ve chosen to do this. You may get people who, whilst not interested in presenting, would like to attend the conference, so that they can hear the papers and meet new people in the field. Remember to set a closing date for registration- this way you can finalise numbers well in advance of the conference for catering etc.
Some attendees might make very good chairs for panels, so keep track of who’s coming along. In preparing our conference, one of the chairs we had initially pencilled in had to pull out at the last minute. We ended up asking a fellow PhD student who was just attending (and not presenting at the conference). As it happens, she had similar research interests to the speakers on the panel. She accepted, and whilst she had never chaired a conference panel before, she turned out to be a natural at it! Sort out your chairs after the programme of papers and presenters is ready- ideally, the chair’s experience should match the papers being presented, though it doesn’t have to be an exact fit of research interests.
Chairs are useful because they make running the conference much easier- they can help the panels to run smoothly whilst you take care of the admin. A good chair will introduce the speakers on the panel, make sure everyone keeps to time and then co-ordinate questions from the audience. As to who can serve as panel chairs: conference committee members, keynote speakers, other speakers, attendees and members of staff at your university can all do this- there’s no hard and fast rules. Just a) make sure no-one is chairing a panel they are speaking on and b) make sure no-one is overstretched.
NEE- HIP: North East of England- Historians of Ireland, Postgraduate network 