A recent article published in PS: Political Science and Politics raised an extremely valid point regarding the utility of academic conferences such as the annual meetings of APSA, ISA, or MPSA, among others. The author discusses the problems with the current configuration of panels, panels, and mostly more panels at these conferences and how most of the time, authors who have spent hours upon hours developing (often) brilliant research, provide presentations of said research that more often than not is clearly hastily constructed and delivered to a usually small audience. Is this the best way to share and enhance research, to promote the development of teaching and learning, or to network among members of the political science community? Probably not. The author suggests some reforms to the current system, including the elimination of most panels that will be replaced by more in-depth research presentations focused on single projects and about having a conversation about research rather than a one-sided presentation with limited interaction between audience and panel.

I have personally attended all of the major conferences in the field and have found many of the issues that the author discusses to be common and often problematic. I can’t recall a single panel that I’ve presented on where every panelist was present and more importantly, where every panelist submitted a complete research project/paper before the conference. These two points are important because panels are guaranteed to lose utility if 1) panelists don’t show up and 2) they don’t share their projects with enough time for others to read and comment. Both inherently limit the ability of the panel to have a constructive discussion of the broader research topic, In addition, because of the limiting structure of panels, the audience rarely gets a lot of time to ask questions or to start a dialogue with panelists. In my experience, the best case scenario for Q/A at the end of a panel might be 20-30 minutes. More often, however, has been that there are very few audience members (thus few questions) or that one or more panelists/discussants monopolize the time available for such questions. It might be that these experiences are limited, but based on this author’s observations and those collected over the years, it is far more likely that this is a common problem that requires a new approach. This author’s suggestions might be one place to start.

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=9622725&fulltextType=DS&fileId=S1049096514002236