Future conferences: Call for proposals

Conference Co-Chairs have the opportunity to shape future directions in the field by showcasing emerging intellectual trends and highlighting the societal impact and applications of cognitive science research. Co-chairs also bring visibility to their team, programs and institutions. Moreover, leading the organization of a premier interdisciplinary conference such as the CSS Meeting offers an invaluable service to the field of cognitive science.

CogSci chairs (usually a team of around 4) are responsible for putting together the scientific program of that year’s conference: you get to decide on a conference theme, select and invite plenary speakers, organize special sessions/symposia. You are also responsible for coordinating the meta-reviewers and reviewers, selecting the final set of papers, and arranging the final scientific schedule. You will be supported by various sub-committees (e.g., that decide awards) and by the Governing Board.

The conference cycles between North America, Europe, and other parts of the world. If your proposal is for a conference several years in the future, you can register a preference about general geographic location (i.e., country), and the final decision about the location will be made by the Governing Board.

No — our conference management company, Podium Conferences, will find the specific venue (e.g., conference center) and handle all of the other logistical details.

The workload is light (mostly monthly organizational meetings) until the submission deadline, and peaks in Feb-Mar of the conference year, then it tapers back down until the conference itself. Here is a rough outline of the duties involved.

• By July of the previous conference:
• Deciding on a theme (to be announced at previous year’s conference)
• Inviting keynote speakers, special sessions/symposia
• From July of the previous year to Jan of the current year, duties include:
• Monthly meetings with rest of the organizing committee
• Drafting the call for submissions (released in October).
• Work with PCS (Precision Conference Systems) contact, our submission portal, to set it up by November.
• Recruiting committee members (e.g., Abstracts subcommittee). Recruiting meta-reviewers and reviewers.
• February (after paper submission deadline 1 Feb), duties include:
• Triaging papers (empty submissions, papers with a different format, overlength papers, out-of-scope papers, etc)
• Assign meta-reviewers and reviewers
• Communication with meta-reviewers and reviewers
• March
• Collate reviews and meta-reviews
• Finalize decisions
• April to June
• Coordinate camera-ready submissions
• Finalize scientific program and prepare proceedings
• Meet with invited symposium speakers to finalize content/flow
• July / August
• Attend CogSci!

Don’t worry about it! We have years of institutional knowledge that have been passed down and codified. There are at least four sets of resources that you can tap on:

(i) You are not alone. You will have regular meetings with others, including the CogSci Executive Officer (Erica Wojcik), the current CogSci Conference Committee Chair, and many others on the Governing Board—including the CSS Conference Committee—who will help with answering questions or making decisions.

(ii) Our conference management company, Podium, has years of experience organizing CogSci and other conferences, and will help with many of the logistical aspects of organization.

(iii) We have an in-depth Organizers Handbook compiled over many years and filled with policies and tips to make organizing as smooth as possible.

(iv) You can reach out to previous years’ organizers, who will be happy to share their experiences.

Excellent. Please fill in this form to indicate your interest. It should take no longer than 3 minutes to fill in. There is no deadline for submitting these short expressions of interest, we accept them on a rolling basis and will be in touch.