–Deadline for submissions extended to 31 October 2025–
The CAPS Program Committee invites submissions for sessions that advance a proposed topic of importance in the field. Proposing a session is your opportunity to elevate the issues you care most about, build collaborations, and share your unique perspective with the broadest possible audience. Convening a session can showcase your leadership in the field and/or to spark new connections and future collaborations. A separate call for individual presentations will be released in early December.
Session types for the 2026 Virtual Conference for Advancing Participatory Sciences, May 26-29, include:
- Symposia: A symposium is a 60-minute* panel with a small group of pre-selected speakers. These sessions are for deep, field-building discussions on a topic of broad relevance. To be competitive, your proposal should include speakers with diverse perspectives and provide well-grounded insights. Symposia are a prominent but limited part of the program, so they are highly competitive. See past symposia topics from 2024 or 2025 for ideas of the scope of these sessions.
- Collaborative sessions: Formerly called Ideas-to-Action sessions, these 60-minute* sessions help conference attendees find real-world applications for the big ideas shared at the conference. The goal is to build skills, solve problems, demonstrate tools or resources, or advance a specific effort. Collaborative sessions can address a wide range of topics, with priority given to proposals with engaging formats and clear objectives. Collaborative sessions can be led by an individual or with co-presenters. See past Ideas-to-Action session topics from 2024 and 2022 for inspiration on what these sessions might look like.
- Topical discussion sessions: These sessions are a great way to lead a conversation on a topic you’re passionate about. Unlike a symposium, you don’t need to identify speakers beforehand. Instead, you propose a topic and, if accepted, choose a selection of 6-10 presentations from a pool of individual submissions to join your session. Session leaders can choose to submit an individual presentation for their proposed session (or not), and are encouraged to invite people from their networks to submit to their sessions. Learn more about the CAPS discussion session format here.
The deadline for proposal submission for all session types is October 31 October 17, 2025, at 11:59 PM EST.
*CORRECTION: Most sessions will be 60-minutes, not 75-minutes as previously stated. Additional time for sponsored discussion will be available for select sessions.
PLANNING YOUR SUBMISSION
Spaces in the schedule are limited and not all submissions will be accepted. Should multiple proposals be submitted on similar topics, you may be asked to consider a combined session or a different session type. Therefore, we encourage those interested in submitting to explore collaborations with others interested in the topic.
Evaluation process and criteria
All proposals will be reviewed and ranked by the AAPS Conference program committee. All sessions will be assessed using the following criteria:
- Appeal to a broad audience from different disciplines, roles, and experience levels
- Focus on practices that advance a big topic, idea, or challenge within the participatory sciences
- Present something that is a distinct and novel contribution or of significant interest to the field
- Provide clear grounds for the insights shared (e.g., based on experience, user testing, evaluation data, etc.)
- Offer a clear objective for the session (what people will take away, how your session will make a difference)
- Propose a topic and structure well suited for the session type
- Considers issues related to Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
We also encourage, but don’t require, proposals that indicate plans for post-conference dissemination. Ideas include but are not limited to a white paper, live polls with published dataset of results, peer-reviewed publication, a Youtube video summary, and action-oriented outcomes.
Additional criteria for Symposia:
- Include contributors and ideas from multiple backgrounds and perspectives
- Think about this as an opportunity for a conversation across people and perspectives who may otherwise never be heard together – and why/how that can be powerful. This could look like:
- Community leaders, students, and academics
- Non-profit organizations, agencies, and philanthropists
- Subject matter experts from different fields and who wouldn’t normally cross paths
- Think about this as an opportunity for a conversation across people and perspectives who may otherwise never be heard together – and why/how that can be powerful. This could look like:
- Provide well-grounded insights in an engaging session format
- Well-grounded insights mean providing a clear basis for trust in the information or recommendations you share. This could be from (but isn’t limited to):
- decades of lived experience
- data from evaluation or research (quantitative, qualitative, or interpretive)
- syntheses that show a convergence of ideas
- An engaging session format for symposia may look like including ample time for discussion among panelists, interactive ideas for audience Q and A, etc.
- Well-grounded insights mean providing a clear basis for trust in the information or recommendations you share. This could be from (but isn’t limited to):
Additional criteria for Collaborative Sessions:
- Provide well-grounded insights in an engaging session format
- Well-grounded insights mean providing a clear basis for trust in the information or recommendations you share.
- Engaging session formats may look like:
- Co-creating a resource round-up of tools and resources as applicable to a topic
- A demonstration of how a tool or technology can be used to address a common problem
- A fish bowl to share best practices for how to do a common project task I.e. hosting public events
- A listening and learning session to advance AAPS affiliated efforts. I.e. Working Groups; journal special collection; or partnered work.
- Clearly outlined what skills or knowledge participants will gain as a result of taking part in the session.
- Think of this like learning objectives. Be specific. Avoid vague terms like “understand” or “learn.” Instead, use more specific terms like “apply/create/evaluate/demonstrate/identify”
Additional criteria for Topical Discussion Sessions:
- The suggested topic will attract a suitable audience for a discussion session.
- Each discussion session will have 6-10 presentations. It will be difficult to convene an appropriately sized session if the proposed topic is too broad (i.e. education; data; methods; etc.) or too narrow (i.e. unicorn monitoring in the emerald forest). This conference is about exchanging ideas between related approaches in different spheres- good topics will appeal to a range of folks from different backgrounds. The program committee can help you refine the title of your session to be most successful in recruiting individual presentations if your proposal is accepted.
HOW TO SUBMIT?
Download a copy of this planning guide for a list of questions that you’ll need to answer when using the online submission form. When you are ready to submit, click here to submit your proposal.
Involvement in this event requires live participation from co-presenters – we cannot not support pre-recorded contributions. All presenters in your session are required to register for the event. It is the responsibility of the session convener to find alternative speakers should a listed presenter become unavailable to present at this event. Registration rates are on a sliding scale, with discounts and waivers available-see registration rates here.
Abstracts must be in English as translation services are not currently available for this event. We are looking for sponsors interested in once again supporting translation services as we did in 2024. If you would like to help make conferencing accessible for Spanish speaking colleagues in the Global South (and elsewhere), please contact us ASAP at info(@)citizenscience.org.
The deadline for proposal submissions is October 31 October 17, 2025, at 11:59 PM EST. All submissions must be made through the online form. Abstracts submitted after the deadline cannot be considered. Applicants will be notified of acceptance status by mid-November. The program committee reserves the right to suggest alternative formats or combined sessions.