Call for Scientific Session Proposals

Symposia

Submission site opens: Sunday, February 17, at 6:30 p.m. ET
Deadline for submission: Tuesday, July 14, at 11:59 p.m. PT

Proposals will not be accepted after the deadline

Envisioning Tomorrow's Earth

2020 AAAS Annual Meeting
February 13-16, 2020
Seattle, Washington

The scientific endeavor has been at the forefront in developing innovations which have improved life on Earth in immeasurable ways. Now, life on this planet is facing new challenges from both nature and the built world, and scientific application is our best tool with which to react. By drawing on our current understanding of the world, and bravely experimenting with forward-thinking visions, the scientific community needs to respond with discoveries and developments to help solve many pressing problems. Some research that may be addressed include:

• Within the agriculture-water-energy nexus, the developments that are needed to provide sufficient and higher quality, sustainable food for an ever-growing population;
• The science and technology that combat the risks of increasing air and water pollution;
• Biology at the molecular, cellular and organism levels, and how discoveries in this area may lead to further human well-being;
• How data from blood samples and advances in medical imaging can improve medical diagnostics, prognosis, and treatment;
• Determining the value and means of maintaining natural ecosystems and biological diversity in a changing planet;
• Changes in extreme weather events, preventative actions, and the possibilities and limitations to adaptation strategies;
• Prospects to improve urban living and mobility;
• The science of the next industrial revolution – automation, robotics, artificial intelligence – and the how to mitigate the social disruption of displaced workers

This Annual Meeting celebrates the scientific position on appreciating and addressing the future of planet Earth by considering and collaborating with advances across disciplines, and the ways in which scientists are building networks with policymakers and the public to work more effectively and best take advantage of the many new developments that science and technology is introducing at an ever-increasing pace.

General Information

Proposals of Interest
The AAAS Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee is particularly interested in proposals that connect to the theme. However, proposals not directly related to the theme will be considered if they involve ground-breaking areas of research, new and exciting developments or new angles for approaching a topic, or cross-cutting activities in support of science, technology, and education. See the Proposal Review Considerations section for the information provided to reviewers.

Successful proposals are characterized by:

• Newsworthy and timely topics with broad relevance for the interdisciplinary AAAS audience.
• Representation of the diversity of science and society (including disciplinary field, gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and institution).
• Demonstration of ground-breaking research results and evidence of conclusions, or interesting new angles for approaching a topic.
  • Proposals focused on specific projects or programs are discouraged, unless they significantly emphasize broader applicability.
• Proposals that cover policy are expected to primarily focus on the cutting-edge aspects of the scientific research driving policy in that particular subject, rather than focusing wholly on the issues beyond the science.

Audience:

Based on previous registration data, here is the overall profile for Annual Meeting attendees:

• Top work sectors: 60% from the academic sector, 11% Government, and 9% Research. AAAS is very interested in hearing proposals that draw from the industry sector.
• 85% have advanced degrees, with 50% holding PhDs.
• 50% identified as male, 45% as female, and 5% non-binary/prefer not to answer
• The age groups are equally spread between the following groups: 25 to 34 years, 35 to 44 years, 45 to 54 years, 55 to 64 years, and 65 years or over.

Symposia Format Description

The 90-Minute symposium format should be focused on topics and projects with broad appeal and relevance. A panel is generally composed of three speakers giving 20-minute presentations followed by a 30-minute period for audience questions and comments. Presenters have the options and are encouraged to craft more audience interaction into the session.

Session Set Up

Each session room will be set with:

• One headtable for three (3) with a table microphone
• One podium with microphone
• One projector and accompanying screen
• One audience microphone for audience questions and comments
• The audience area will be set for a mixture of round tables and theater so organizers have the option of leading an audience discussion.

Any additional equipment will be the responsibility for the organizer to secure.

After proposal selection, if your proposal is conditionally accepted to be included in the Annual Meeting program, the Program Committee may suggest ways to modify the composition of the session to ensure greater diversity among session participants.

Communication

To receive notifications and updates, please ensure that the following email addresses will not be blocked: meetings@aaas.org; agreene@aaas.org; cjones@aaas.org; nmaylett@aaas.org, and aaas@confex.com.

NOTE ON LANGUAGE: For language choice, use American English spelling and translations. Spell out all abbreviations and acronyms.

*AAAS reserves the right to edit all submissions for publication, as they will be published in the online meeting program, pocket guide, and app. Modifications are sometimes made to improve clarity and encourage attendance.

Five Steps to Follow to Submit a Proposal

Read these instructions carefully first, then click the “submit” button in the sidebar. Incomplete proposals will be eliminated from consideration.

1. Set Up Proposal

Proposed Title (Maximum of 80 characters with spaces)

• Avoid jargon.
• Ensure that a keyword for your presentation is used in the first three words in the title.
• Make sure the title does not include the words “Envisioning”, “Tomorrow”, or “Earth”.
• When creating a title, keep in mind that meeting attendees may be more likely to attend a session with an interesting title.

SUBMITTER EMAIL ADDRESS
Please enter a valid email address where messages can be received and accessed year-round. The submitter will immediately receive an email confirming the initiation of a session proposal and provided a link for returning to and editing your submission.

CATEGORIES AND KEYWORDS
Please select the Primary and Secondary Subject Categories that best describe the overall nature of the proposal. This information is used by the Program Committee to help generate broader scientific session tracks or sub-themes.

SYNOPSIS

• Limit description to 1,500 characters including spaces.
• Provide a clear, succinct synopsis of your proposed scientific session as it would appear in the meeting program.
• Emphasize what you want the audience to take away from the session.
• Do not name speakers or the titles of their presentations in the synopsis.
• Avoid the use of report or book references, abbreviations, or technical jargon.
• Past Annual Meeting programs are archived at http://www.aaas.org/annual-meeting/archives and can be a useful source of information.

NEWSWORTHINESS
Highlight how the material would be newsworthy. Is it relevant to current events? Is the discovery new or unexpected? How could it impact the public’s lives?

RELEVANCE TO THEME OR TO THE AUDIENCE
Describe how the proposed scientific session relates to the theme or to the AAAS Annual Meeting audience (up to 500 characters, including spaces). Please note, the Program Committee will consider proposals that are not directly related to the theme if they involve ground-breaking areas of research, new and exciting developments, or cross-cutting activities in support of science, technology, and education.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST
AAAS requires clear disclosures from all presenters at its Annual Meeting regarding any affiliations, funding sources, or financial holdings that might raise questions of bias or be perceived to have potentially influenced presentation content.

Organizers will be asked to confirm that there are no known conflicts of interest for the panelists or list conflicts of interest. Speakers will also be asked to provide this information at a later date.

DIVERSITY STATEMENT
AAAS selection process leans towards proposals that bring together a variety of points of view on the symposium material. This includes scientific discipline, gender, race and ethnicity, institutions, and geographic locations.

2. Add/Edit People

*90-minute symposia are required to have three (3) speakers. Speakers must not all be from the same institution.

SCHEDULING NOTE: When selecting speakers, please ensure they are available to participate at any time between

Friday, February 14 through the evening of Sunday, February 16, 2020.

Once the scientific session schedule is announced in the fall of 2019, it will be considered final.

TRAVEL SUPPORT NOTE:
Organizers, speakers, and others participate in the program at their own expense or use funding secured by an organizer from a source that has been vetted by AAAS Meetings to avoid conflicts of interest. As a nonprofit organization, AAAS does not have the financial resources to fund travel expenses for the more than 1,000 program participants at each year’s meeting. However, one of the 24 disciplinary sections of AAAS may choose to authorize travel support for speakers, organizers, and discussants from their modest budgets. Funding is limited and typically provides partial support.

EXPLANATION OF ROLES

Organizer
The organizer is the primary person responsible for shaping the topic, coordination, and recruitment of participants. The organizer serves as the primary contact for all communications with AAAS Meetings staff. It is the responsibility of the organizer to submit the proposal to AAAS and ensure that participants receive all information relevant to their inclusion in the proposal and in the meeting if the proposal is accepted. After proposal acceptance, the organizer is responsible for providing, in a timely manner, information regarding any changes in participants and reason for the change to AAAS for final approval.

Speaker
As a key player in conveying of the overall topic of the session, the speaker shares his/her/their unique research with the audience.

Information an organizer will need to provide for a successful proposal:

Presentation Titles and Descriptions

For each speaker, include:

• a presentation title (up to 80 characters, including spaces)
• describe the proposed content or perspective of the presentation in a few sentences (up to 500 characters, including spaces). This is crucial to reviewers’ understanding of why you are proposing a particular speaker.

Please do not submit CVs, biographical information, or formal abstracts for the presenters (beyond the short presentation description). While recognizing that some changes will occur, the committee reserves the right to reconsider sessions if there are speaker substitutions after acceptance of the original proposal.

• Status: Invited or Confirmed. “Invited” means that you have contacted the speaker, and your invitation is under consideration. “Confirmed” means the speaker has responded to your invitation and confirmed both that they are available during the dates of the meeting, and will participate if the proposal is accepted. After the program decisions are made, AAAS will send notifications to all speakers, whether invited or confirmed, to verify their status and request final confirmation.

Co-Organizer (optional)
Co-organizers may assist the organizer of a 90-minute session with lining up speakers and ensuring that deadlines are met by session participants. There is a maximum of one (1) co-organizer allowed in addition to the mandatory organizer.

Moderator (optional)
Moderators are optional for the symposium format. AAAS encourages selecting moderators for their skill and experience in facilitating group discussions. The moderator provides a brief overview, introduces each speaker, and facilitates a general discussion by the audience and speakers through a Q&A session. Moderators do not make presentations, submit abstracts, or have a formal speaking role. Please refer to moderator guidance when selecting your moderator.

Discussant (optional)
A maximum of one (1) discussant is allowed. Discussants provide a brief review of, or counterpoint to, the main topics or issues covered by the panel. They do not make presentations, submit abstracts, or have a formal speaking role.

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION

You will be required to enter the following information for each individual:

• Name (confirm correct spelling)
• Email address (confirm address where messages can be received year-round)
• Identify whether organizer is a member of AAAS
• Job Title
• Status (Confirmed or Invited)
• Affiliation (primary institution; confirm correct spelling)
• Complete mailing address
• Telephone number

AAAS needs this to:

• Confirm participation;
• Communicate with speakers who apply for travel assistance;
• Or send speakers information about AAAS Annual Meeting Newsroom requests.

3. Keywords

To significantly assist in finding the appropriate peer reviewers for your proposal, please select between three (3) and five (5) keywords that best describe your proposal. To improve matching, there is now only one write-in option. The full list of keywords is available here.

4. AAAS Sections

Select up to three (3) AAAS Sections that are related to your proposal's disciplinary areas. After you have confirmed proposal submission, a link to your proposal will be sent to section officers for informational purposes.

ORGANIZER AFFILIATION

If applicable, indicate the primary AAAS Section affiliation of the session organizer.

DISCIPLINARY SECTIONS CONSULTED? (optional)
Indicate if your proposal has been discussed with an AAAS Section. Consultation does not imply support or endorsement of a proposal. A list of sections and contacts are available at www.aaas.org/sections.

Drop down of section choices

Check Boxes

• Organizer Affiliated with AAAS Section
• Discussed with AAAS Session

5. Confirmation

Once you have entered the required information for Steps 1-4, review all the information you have submitted. If you need to make corrections, click on the appropriate step link in the left frame. Otherwise, click the “Submit” button at the bottom of the page. To log out, simply close your browser window. If you run into any problems, please email your questions or comments using the hyperlink for Technical Support that appears in the Scientific Session Control Panel.

Additional Note: Once a proposal has been accepted into the program, any change to the session topic, number of speakers, or participants must be approved by AAAS.

Proposal Reviewer Considerations

The following are considerations provided to reviewers. Organizers should carefully follow the instructions for submitting their proposals, which will be evaluated for completeness and clarity. Incomplete proposals (including missing descriptions for the presentations) will not be reviewed.

Evaluate the proposal in general:

• Is information adequate for evaluation?
• Does the proposal clearly describe the session?
• Is it well organized and coherent?

Evaluate the topic:

• Is the topic timely and newsworthy?
• Is the topic too narrow or technical for a multidisciplinary audience?

The AAAS Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee is particularly interested in proposals that highlight the theme. However, proposals that are not directly related to the theme will be considered if they involve ground-breaking areas of research, new and exciting developments, or interesting perspectives about an issue of broad disciplinary or interdisciplinary interest. Proposals that cover policy are expected to primarily focus on the cutting-edge aspects of the scientific research driving policy on that particular subject, rather than focusing wholly on the issues beyond the science.

Evaluate the content:

• Does it offer a unique opportunity to AAAS attendees that would not be available in another venue?
• Will speakers present topics from which dynamic discussions can develop?
• Consider overall merit and the importance of including the proposed session in the program.

Speakers should refrain from simply “teaching” the audience basic science or about a particular project. Proposals focused on promoting specific projects or programs are discouraged unless they significantly emphasize broader applicability. Strong proposals include demonstration of research results and evidence of conclusions, rather than descriptions of projects or programs in earlier stages of development.

Evaluate the participants:

• Can they speak authoritatively on their topic?
• Is the panel composed of diverse organizations and institutions?
• Are the presentations integrated and coherent as a group?
• Does the panel present a balanced perspective? Are they all “invited” or “confirmed”?

Overall Judgement:

Finally, make an overall judgment about the relative merit of each proposal, expressed as a rank ordering of all the proposals you review, with 1 as the best, 2 the second best, and so on. This rank should be based on the previous four criteria, but it need not be from a mechanical arithmetic average of your communicated scores. Different criteria may figure more or less strongly in your judgment of each proposal, based on the particular nature of that proposal, and this can be reflected in your overall rankings.