For the Changing Worlds Conference, we tried to experiment with the format of an academic conference. We learned as we went, and were definitely a lot more adventurous in the second year of the event.
The whole experiment started when a group of master’s students with a wide range of disciplinary and personal backgrounds came together to imagine and later execute the conferences. We noticed early on that we all had different expectations for what a conference might look and feel like. And being social scientists, we decided to explore what that might mean.
I wrote two texts about my experiences for the conference blog where we collected some of our thoughts and challenges planning an inclusive event.
The first post discusses different styles of conferences I have come across as a designer and social scientist.
The second post focuses on the practicalities of reaching and engaging a heterogenous audience. I am sharing a lot of questions that came up during our 2,5 years of conference planning and attempt to answer some of them.
We also wrote a guideline for hybrid spaces for the participants, feel free to use it!