5 February 2021
Fully virtual conference on 24-27 May 2021. Plenary speakers include Philip Ball, Marina Joubert and Matt Nisbet.
PCST2020+1 conference is now less than four months away (24-27 May 2021).
The system to provide this fully virtual conference has been chosen, and the detailed requirements are now being worked on.
The service provider specialises in scientific conferences and has hosted many fully virtual events in the past year. With facilities for recording plenary and parallel sessions, the conference can be viewed in real time and, for the following month, on demand.
The age-old dilemma of choosing between equally attractive parallel sessions is resolved: conference participants can move easily between sessions as they are happening, and can catch up later on any they have missed.
Registration for those presenting at PCST2020+1 has now closed, and the preparation of a draft programme of parallel sessions can begin. Meanwhile, the programme of keynote talks and plenary discussions is almost complete.
Covid-19 will be a topic running through several parts of the programme. There was a strong response to the call for proposals on this topic, and these papers and discussions will be a significant addition to the conference beyond what was already approved for the planned PCST2020 event.
Philip Ball, who will deliver the opening keynote talk, has moved his focus to COVID-19, on which he has been an active commentator over the past year (see examples here and here). His talk will be followed by a panel discussion with researchers on aspects of the public communication and perception of the pandemic.
Plenary talks by Marina Joubert, on celebrity scientists, and by Matt Nisbet, on changes in environmental and risk communication, and the panel discussions to follow these talks, will also take account in other ways of COVID-19’s impacts.
PCST Network is proud to have a reputation for a friendly, collegial atmosphere at its conferences. We will do our best to replicate that in these much-changed pandemic circumstances. Registration remains open for those wishing to attend the conference and follow the sessions, including taking part in online discussions and networking.
If you want to keep in touch with developments in science communication internationally, this is an occasion not to be missed.
