Good news for our association! We received more than 3,700 submissions for Boston, marking a 30% increase in comparison with Chicago, which is huge! The bad news is that, because of this impressive number, we might have to be more selective regarding what papers and panel proposals will ultimately make it to Massachusetts next year. Given that our conference space is limited (27 rooms were reserved for the conference sessions in the hotel), it is highly possible that we might have to select only 38% of the panels and papers submitted to the 2011 ICA conference, which is unheard of.
Even if ICA usually prides itself for having a relatively low acceptance rate, the numbers usually are between 40 and 50% for North American destinations and between 50 and 60% for non-North American destinations (in Singapore, 55% of the paper and panel proposals were accepted). With a 38% acceptance rate, we could be reaching a new step in our selection process, which leads us to reflect on the kind of association we want to be. Two types of reasoning could indeed be followed to evaluate such a situation.
On the one hand, we could welcome such a low rate, which should assure an even higher quality of the research and ideas presented in our conferences. Rejecting a relatively high number of proposals also allows us to limit the size of the conference, something that tends to be appreciated by many ICA members who deplore the high attendance of other conferences.
On the other hand, having a 38% acceptance rate could also result in putting off many members whose proposals will be rejected. Given our goal to become more and more international, having such a low acceptance rate could also disadvantage potential members who submitted proposals without being necessarily well informed about our selection criteria (both in terms of format and content).
Given our official aim to "advance the scholarly study of human communication by encouraging and facilitating excellence in academic research worldwide" (see our mission statement), we have, for sure, to be extremely sensitive to the question of quality, but we also need to be work on our openness and I think that by lowering the acceptance rate, this might ultimately disfavor us as an association.
In the next few weeks, I will try to work closely with Michael Haley, our executive director; Larry Gross, the organizer of the next ICA conference; and the three other members of the Executive committee to see if some solutions can not be found to reach at least a 40% acceptance rate.
On another note, I am extremely happy to report that the Faculty of Communications of the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile has officially accepted our invitation to organize and host an ICA regional conference in Santiago, Chile, during the second semester of 2012. Given that Latin America is a region of the world that has been historically underrepresented in terms of ICA membership, we hope that the organization of this conference will make ICA more visible and tangible to scholars from this key region of the communication world.
Other discussions are also currently taking place with a French university and my hope is that we will also be able to organize an ICA regional conference in France in March 2012. More news to come soon!
