The role of chairing an academic conference is often a stepping stone for a researcher, but it does involve more work than the title might suggest. As the chair, you will introduce upcoming speakers with a short biography and keep the schedule on track. But to be effective, your role involves creating a seamless integration of the entire conference, which can be difficult to do when each speaker has a distinctly different presentation.

To do this well involves a lot of forethought and planning. How will you introduce the speaker warmly so they all have the same feeling of welcome? What will you do if there’s a glitch in the schedule or a speaker concludes too soon or continues to talk after their time is up? How do you plan on wrapping up the conference to leave everyone with a positive feeling about the time they spent there?

These are all parts of chairing a conference, and when you do it well, it reflects back on you as a professional.

What’s Involved in Being a Chairperson

Before you accept or decline an invitation to chair an academic conference, make sure you understand what your role would involve. Some organizations provide everything from the setup and presentation list to the planned checklist down to the last detail. This lets you focus on your role as the facilitator, and is what the ultimate title involves.  

However, other organizations expect the chairperson to oversee everything and ensure that the event goes off without a hitch. Verify your duties with the person who extended the invitation and consider the responsibilities and your upcoming schedule.

Will you be able to put the effort and resources necessary toward chairing and still keep your workload and personal life in balance? If you’re not sure, it’s best to decline rather than put a half-hearted effort into the conference and have it reflect back poorly on you and the organization. 

How to Plan for a Positive, Seamless Conference

For the most part, professional organizations hire experts to put the event together. You’re free to plan for your role as a chairperson, getting as thorough and in-depth as necessary to put the event together in a cohesive manner. Approach the conference as you would a presentation you’d put on in front of stakeholders or your peers. There’s no room for margin or beginner mistakes in those situations.

To get started with your planning, start with the basics. These are things that seem like common sense but might otherwise get overlooked as you tackle the more complex aspects of chairing. Ask yourself questions like: 

●      Who are the presenters, and how do I pronounce their names correctly? Can I do this without practicing, or should I say the names aloud multiple times until I know them perfectly? (Stumbling over a person’s name when you announce it is insulting. In the academic field, you’ll run into complicated names from foreign countries, so this step is vital if you want to appear professional from the start.)

●      What is interesting about each presenter? How can I introduce them to show them in their best light and pique the audience’s interest in their upcoming presentation?

●      Where can I sit to be unobtrusive, yet nearby in case of issues and when it’s my turn to speak?

Once these basics are taken care of, you’re free to focus on putting your speech together. Chances are, you’ll be using visual media cues. Design your speech for each presenter, then summarize it in a short blurb to put on display. Don’t try to use the speech itself as the visual cue. The audience will be trying to read the content instead of listening to you.

To tie the presentations together, after you complete each person’s introduction speech, look for a common theme or thread. Then, go back and make sure that the concept is clear enough that the audience will see how every presenter is linked together.

Impactio Can Help You Engage Your Audience

Chairing an academic conference isn’t the rocket science level of work you’re used to completing, but it’s still important to your career. You want to make an impact, and Impactio is a tool that helps you do this.

Impactio is America’s leading platform for academic impact analytics and scientific research. Many of your presenters will have a portfolio on the site, and you can use that information to guide your introductions. 

Check out the recent publishings by each author, pull statistics from Impactio on citations and impacts, and paint a picture of the person’s credibility and history. You can even connect with the presenter to ask pertinent questions that help you put together an overall picture of their work. It’s all in front of you when you use Impactio to engage your audience and build your academic network.