The 2020 APSA Annual Meeting & Exhibition Transitioning to Virtual Format
The safety of the American Political Science Association (APSA) community is our top priority. In light of the current situation surrounding COVID-19, we will deliver our 116th American Political Science Association’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition, scheduled for September 10-13, 2020 in San Francisco, as a virtual digital event.
The APSA Annual Meeting helps create a vibrant and sustainable community for attendees and the discipline. We recognize the essential role of the annual meeting is more important than ever, and the need to bring our scholarly community together, share the latest research and scholarship, provide opportunities for scholars to learn about the job market, and be able to network with colleagues in their areas of expertise.
The Virtual APSA Annual Meeting will take place from mid-day Wednesday, September 9, through Sunday, September 13. Short courses will happen on Tuesday, September 8, and in the morning on Wednesday, September 9. Panels will now be in Mountain time (MT, UTC -6) to accommodate the largest number of attendees. All of the panels that start at 8:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. will move forward in their same time slots as they were scheduled, with the exception of being in Mountain time (UTC -6) now. Panels originally slated for 4 p.m. will be moved to another day at an earlier time. If there are significant time zone conflicts (Asia, Australia, New Zealand, or Hawaii), we will work them to adjust to a pre-existing time slot that may work better for them. We will accept these requests once the program is live – likely in mid-July. View the updated live program.
We plan to keep most, if not all, of the program content, depending upon an individual’s ability to participate. There will be virtual rooms for section business meetings, related group meetings, editorial board meetings, and committee meetings.
We will be asking everyone to reconfirm their participation in the program. We ask that participants, especially those in volunteer roles, think carefully about their time commitments to ensure they can provide quality feedback and a robust discussion in these important roles. As such, we will be opening another call for volunteer roles (chairs and discussants) shortly.
Further, at the request of the program chairs, there will be two additional calls for proposals based on current events:
- “Relevance, Quality, and Expedience: Political Science Responds to COVID-19”
- “Black Lives, Black Deaths, and Black Protest: Political Scientists Respond (Anew) to a Persistent Challenge.”
Proposals will be reviewed by the program chairs.
We will be contacting all currently registered attendees soon to inquire if they would like their registration fees adjusted for the virtual event or refunded. We plan to issue a revised pricing schedule for registration fees for the virtual event very shortly.
We are very grateful for the tremendous work done by Program Chairs Efrén Pérez, UCLA, and Andra Gillespie, Emory University, our division chairs, and many other volunteers who make the annual meeting a reality. We are very excited and proud to deliver this important and innovative event to the APSA community in this new virtual format.