ICA London: Abundance in Times of Crisis
The 2013 edition of the ICA annual conference will definitely be the conference of all records, the mother of all conferences. First, there will be 29 preconferences on offer. Some short, some long, some in workshop format, others with panels and call for proposals, some in London, some outside of London. For many, these preconferences alone will be worth the trip to London. Later, three postconferences will offer the possibility to extend the scholarly feast a little longer.
The main conference will also break all records. The response to the call for proposals has reached unprecedented numbers. Over 3,800 papers, in addition to over 400 panels were entered in the system. This is unheard of at ICA; 25% more than the previous record (the Boston conference in 2010).
The enthusiasm is overwhelming, and this is very gratifying for all those across the association sparing no effort to organize this conference. But success comes with a price. The logistics of the upcoming conference have very limited elasticity. In fact, the conference venue is rather smaller than some of the recent venues, with a strictly limited number of rooms, and a number of these rooms of rather small size.
This has led ICA to consider a number of possibilities to increase the number of sessions so as to maintain as high an acceptance rate as possible. After careful consideration, it was decided that the conference would be extended by half a day. It was planned initially to end at lunchtime on Friday 21 June, but instead it will end in the late afternoon. In addition to that, on Wednesday and Thursday, the conference will start earlier in the morning (probably 8:30 a.m.). Along with a number of smaller adjustments, this should allow for nearly 20% more presentations than last year or the year before: One more record broken.
In spite of that, the acceptance rate will likely be held down to about 35% on average. This will force planners and reviewers to be extremely demanding and selective and this will probably cause some frustration among those members whose proposals could not be selected. This is, unfortunately, unavoidable.
I take this opportunity to thank all program planners and the armies of reviewers who, undoubtedly, are faced with record numbers of proposals to review. In a way, this conference offers us a rare treat of abundance in the current context of crisis where we grow used to restrictions and scarcity. Take heart, it's going to be another great conference.