The ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee invites proposals to host the Digital Humanities conference in 2020. According to the three-year rotation adopted by the ADHO steering committee in 2014, DH2020 will be hosted in the US or Canada. (Please see ADHO's Statement on International Conference Travel.)
Digital Humanities (DH) is the annual, international conference of the Alliance of Digital Humanities Organizations (ADHO). ADHO's constituent organizations are the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH)Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH)Canadian Society for Digital Humanities / Société canadienne des humanités numériques (CSDH/SCHN)Australasian Association for Digital Humanities (aaDH)centerNetHumanistica, L'association francophone des humanités numériques/digitalesJapanese Association for Digital Humanities (JADH). The next joint DH conference will be held in Montréal, Canada, on the campus of the University of McGill and co-organized by the University of Montréal, 8-11 August 2017. DH2018 will be held in Mexico City, Mexico, co-organized by the Colegio de México and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) in alliance with La Red de Humanidades Digitales (RedHD 24-30 June 2018. DH2019 will be held in Utrecht, Netherlands, co-organized by the University of Utrecht, the KNAW, and CLARIAH.
We are particularly interested in proposals from institutions or regions that 1) have developed or are developing digital humanities communities and organizations and 2) have not previously hosted a DH conference. Please note that the local organizers must be members of one of the ADHO constituent organizations, listed above.
Conference Information
The conference regularly attracts approximately 500 attendees, but recent years have seen a constant growth of numbers well beyond 500. It consists of 3 days of panels, papers and posters, preceded by 2 days of pre-workshops and tutorials. There are normally 6 or more parallel sessions per time slot and a small number of plenary presentations and receptions. Meetings of the committees of ADHO’s constituent organizations (COs) precede the conference, and lunchtime slots are normally used for the member meetings of the COs. The peer-reviewed academic program is developed by an international Program Committee, which is appointed by the COs.
Local Organizers’ Responsibilities
Local organizers at the host institution(s) are responsible for developing the conference web site, providing facilities, producing a collection of abstracts, organizing a conference banquet, and coordinating any other social events that they think appropriate. The conference is entirely self-financed through conference fees and any other financial contributions that ADHO or the local organizer is able to arrange. ADHO provides partial financial underwriting of the conference (and can, in certain circumstances, advance small amounts of funds for expenses that need to be prepaid) and works together with the local organizers to ensure that registration fees and other income will support all conference expenditures; the details can be found in the ADHO Conference Protocol and related documentation. ADHO also finances certain conference awards, such as named prizes or bursaries. In consultation with the ADHO Program Committee, the local organizers may suggest plenary speakers whose travel, subsistence, and registration must be funded from the conference budget; again, see the Conference Protocol for details.
The local organizers are expected to set three levels of registration fees: for members of ADHO constituent organizations; for non-members; and for students.
ADHO uses the conference management system ConfTool, and the ADHO Infrastructure and Conference Coordinating committees provide support for this system, including access to data from previous conferences. Local organizers are required to use the ConfTool system for registering participants and including them in special events such as the banquet, but actual credit card payments may be processed outside ConfTool by the local organizer.
Proposal Process
Written proposals should include the following:
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an overview of facilities at the host institution
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a summary of local institutional engagement and support for the organizers, and contingency plans in case of problems
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possible arrangements for social events, including the conference banquet
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options for accommodation, including provisional costs and especial attention to low-cost student housing
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travel information and advice for participants
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a provisional budget, with an estimated registration fee
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options for payment (credit card, foreign currency, etc.) by participants
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a brief outline of potential approaches to conference sponsorship
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any other information that will help the ADHO Steering Committee make a selection
The DH2020 host will be selected at the DH2017 conference in Montréal, Canada. Proposers must be prepared to give a short presentation and to answer questions at the ADHO Steering Committee meeting on 6 August at DH2017.
Potential organizers are invited to discuss their plans informally with the chair and vice-chair of the ADHO Conference Coordinating Committee, Claire Clivaz (claire.clivaz@isb-sib.ch) and Brian Croxall (brian.croxall@brown.edu), respectively, before submitting a bid. Protocols, guidelines, information about past conferences, and a memorandum of understanding between ADHO and local organizers can be found here: http://adho.org/conference. Sample budgets and other information may be available for planning purposes on request.
Proposals should be submitted to Clivaz and Croxall in draft form by 31 May 2017.
Rev. 30 January 2017