Session Guidelines

Please read the Session Guidelines carefully. They are prerequisite for participation. You have to confirm that you've read them when you submit. Helpful hints can be found in the FAQ. Please also read them, even if you've participated before—a few things have changed since last year.

The title for your submission: Short & on point! 
The title can consist of a maximum of 200 characters (we radically edit anything exceeding this). Use both upper and lower case letters for your title. Please don’t write your title only in caps or with all the words in lower case. Sure, funny titles are catchy. On the other hand, your title will be up against many other titles, vying for the attention of the visitors. The more straight forward and descriptive your title is, the better. “All you need is love: Social media strategies for confronting hate online” is better than “Why all you need is love”. 

What is the short thesis and how long can it be?
It really should be “short”, up to 350 characters. Only state your basic proposition and how you will be discussing / covering it. Your short thesis should make it clear what you are going to talk about.

The description of your session
The description of your session should be no longer than 2,000 characters. Even though we haven’t set up an automatic restriction, we only assess the first 2,000 characters. There won't be time for the evaluation of exhausting essays. This will be the text that is published should your idea be accepted. It should be as concise and easy to understand as possible.

Length and structure of your session
A session can be 30 or 60 minutes long—Workshop Sessions can be 60 or 120 minutes long. Plan time for Q&As during preparation. Have a look how much time we usually advise for Q&A at the end of a session: 

  • 30-minute sessions = 20 minutes content + 10 minutes Q&A (the stage host or the moderator will guide the Q&A)
  • 60-minutes session = 45-50 minutes content + 10-15 minutes Q&A (the stage host or the moderator will guide the Q&A)
  • 120-minutes session are designed for workshops only

The difficulty level of your submission—who do you want to address?
The degree of difficulty of your sessions is determined by the necessary background knowledge of the visitors. These are our visitor profiles:

  • ‘Beginner’: for people with no or little previous knowledge
  • ‘Everyone’: for people with little previous knowledge 
  • ‘Expert’: for experts, so everyone who’s working, researching, reporting in that field (but also open for everyone)

In this together: Co-Speaker in your session
Each format has a maximum number of possible speakers. Please pay attention to the gender balace - each session should be minimum 50% female (the moderator is not influencing the gender balance).

  • Talk: 1-2 speaker (also fireside chats)
  • Panel discussion: 3-4 speaker (including the moderator)
  • Workshop: 1-2 speaker

Your responsabilities
As the person who submits the session, your responsible for the session. You can just be responsible for one session at re:publica. Accordingly, you are the contact person for all questions regarding your session. You are also responsible to pass on all the information to your co-speaker. When you’re organizing a panel, you are responsible that all the speaker set up their speaker accounts and fill them with information. Only then you can add them to your session. As the organizer of the session, you’ll appear as a speaker in the session.

What we like—and what not!
The audience, the programme team and the co-curatorswant compelling and well-researched content that addresses the solutions and challenges of our digital society. They have no interest in marketing pitches that disguise themselves as informative sessions. Obvious advertisement and marketing pitches have no chance in our Call for Participation (CfP). That doesn’t mean that re:publica visitors are not also interested in the newest digital products and services. If you would like to present your innovation please refer to our colleagues at Partnermanagement. They can give you more information about the many ways to be there: partner (at) re-publica.com.

Formal requirements
Spelling, grammar and proper punctuation are important. You wouldn’t send off an application with unfinished sentences and typos either. It’s therefore advised to have your submission proofread before handing it in.

Here are a few key points:

  • Use both upper and lower case letters for your title. Please don’t write your title only in caps or with all the words in lower case.
  • Punctuation brings rhythm and balance into your thoughts. So don’t be afraid of commas, catchwords, colons and exclamation points!
  • Look out for copy & paste mistakes! Seriously! They happen more often than you’d think.
  • Read your description to someone else (ideally someone who doesn’t know your topic that well). They can then give you feedback regarding if what you are trying to communicate is understandable.
  • AND: even if your concept seems clear and coherent to you, don’t forget that most people who will be reading your description have a different background than you.

TIPP: Read your description to a friend who doesn’t know your subject too well. They can give you feedback as to whether or not what you want to say is understandable.

Quality over Quantity!
You can edit and submit several proposals. However, after the deadline has expired, we will only consider the most recent and only in exceptional cases a second proposal.

The Final Countdown: The Call for Participations ends on 15th December 2019
Please finalize your submission by the deadline. It is technically possible to edit the session afterwards, but editing it later makes curatorial work more difficult - we will see in the backend when you have changed something. Therefore we do not accept changes after the end of the CfP deadline without consultation! Only change your submission if we ask you to do so (e.g. for improvement suggestions) or let us know beforehand by e-mail that you want to change something and we will decide on a case-by-case basis.