ICAR 2027 - MADISON

The community is invited to submit a session proposal for consideration at ICAR 2027. Our primary goal is to showcase cutting-edge & exciting plant biology research- with a focus on Arabidopsis.

There are ~27 slots available:

• 18 community-organized symposia: 75 minute program
• 9 community-organized workshops: 60 minute program

Proposals will be reviewed & scored by at least 2 members of the organizing committee (with proposer information removed) then all recommendations will be discussed by the committee to balance topics, proposer career stage, geographic distribution, and gender. We may recommend overlapping proposals to merge into collaborative sessions. To support trainees we will reserve at least 25% of the slots for student and/or postdoc organizers (assuming we receive a sufficient number of excellent applications).

ICAR 2027 will be a hybrid conference meaning that virtual attendees can view live-streamed sessions, as well as recordings.

• All speakers must be on-site, in-person
• We will record sessions for later viewing by registered attendees.
• By submitting a session proposal you are agreeing that if your topic is selected, that your session will be accessible by virtual attendees and recorded for on-demand access by registered participants for ~4-8 weeks post-ICAR. It will also be important to make this clear to any speakers that you recruit outside of submitted abstracts.

Notes:

• We encourage collaborative session proposal development. When you submit your proposal you will be asked if you have co-chair information to submit (encouraged but not required; your proposal will not be at a disadvantage if you are the sole chair)
• All session chairs are expected to select at least some session speakers from submitted abstracts. We plan to provide abstracts to selected session chairs in mid-March 2027 following the oral abstract deadline (15 March). We will need several days to organize the submissions prior to providing them for review.
• A draft session program (with several alternate speakers) is due from session chairs by March 31, 2027. The organizers will review all programs for balance and diversity by institution, gender, geography, etc. [We may recommend inviting 1+ alternate speakers if the program is unbalanced.] Once your draft list is approved, you may invite the speakers.
• We will not approve sessions that are primarily composed of speakers from the same lab or the same institution.
• We do not have funding to offer to session chairs or speakers. Depending on fundraising success, we may be able to offer some registration fee waivers to students and postdocs that apply through a conference award application (visit the Funding page for opportunities).
• All speakers must be in-person and all speakers, chairs, and organizers must be registered for ICAR 2027 by no later than 31 May 2027 to remain in the program.
• Selected session chairs will be required to attend a short (~30 minute) Zoom session in Spring, 2027 to go over session chairing best practices to ensure the sessions run effectively. There will be time for Q&A too