ASC 2014 conference update

Register now for the ASC2014 conference (2 to 5 February 2014, Brisbane)

Thank you to Claire Harris for providing us with the conference update. This article was published in ASC’s newsletter Scope (August edition).

ASC 2014 conference activities are in full swing with only 2 weeks left until all session proposals and abstracts are due.

What you submit is going to shape the entire three days…

Why do we do this you might ask? Because the ASC conference philosophy is to facilitate a conference that is for you and in many areas, by you. Indeed the Conference Organising and Program Committees have been, for many months, digesting feedback from past conferences and from recent events, discussions on the ASC-list, conversations we’ve had with you face to face or by email…

We all have our thinking caps on about responding to and actioning the feedback and ideas. Part of this, though, can only be achieved with you, our members and supporters of the science communication community. For you are all champions and agents of change. So here’s your chance to make a difference to the conference program!

To answer a couple of questions we’ve had about the way that the conference programming will be done and how the more-traditional research stream is being handled this year, we want to provide some more here.

Firstly, we know many of you live and breathe a mix of research/theory and practice in your jobs and science communication interest, while others sometimes struggle to keep on top of all that’s going on. This is why, put simply, we’re aiming to integrate research and practice across the program; to help bridge perceived or real gaps between these two areas. We believe this type of approach has the potential to make our conference more valuable for our diverse community. We hope we come some way to achieving this integration in our program! Your advice and feedback will assist with this process.

We have also had calls for more case studies and real life stories, good and bad and everything in between, from practitioners. There are so many people doing interesting things that we don’t often get to hear about. And we’ve had requests for more time for research questions and answers, more research embedded in the main program, and a poster session.

In addition, a conference proceedings has long been on the wish list.For the first time we are in a position to offer all speakers and session producers the opportunity to submit abstracts and, if they want to, papers for conference proceedings. So the knowledge and experience of presenters can live on into the future.

More information is available at our conference website and if you have any conference session ideas or special events you want to run by the program committee (or need some assistance in developing), please email program.committee@asc.asn.au.

Registrations are open. Sponsors are welcome.

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