Discussion groups and mini-symposia will again be an important feature of the conference at Beijing and members are hereby invited to submit proposals for discussion groups and mini-symposia to Johann Kirsten (johann.kirsten@up.ac.za) before 31 January 2009. Details on each are provided below.
Mini-Symposia
Mini-symposia are less structured sessions than those for invited panels or contributed papers and give delegates much greater opportunity to participate in discussion. These mini-symposia will be allocated a 2 hour slot in the programme and typically involve 3 to 5 short presentations (covering 60-100 minutes) all related to a common theme as a stimulus to general discussion. Prospective organisers of a mini-symposium are responsible for designing the contents and time-division of their mini-symposium.
Proposals for organising a mini-symposium should give the title, brief description of the topic, the abstracts of all presentations (not to exceed 300 words; in English), contact details of the organiser, an outline of the scope and content as well as an indication of the expected number of contributors.
Discussion groups
Discussion groups will also be allocated a 2 hour slot in the programme. The objective of the discussion groups is to stimulate open discussion with wide participation on topics of interest to the agricultural economics profession. As such it is not normally expected that papers are presented but the organiser or moderator can prepare an opening statement to stimulate the discussion. The emphasis in these groups is therefore on discussion and not necessarily the presentation of papers. Proposals for discussion groups should include the name(s) of the proposed discussion leaders and a short description of the topic. Organisers should also appoint a rapporteur that should present a summary of the discussions for inclusion in the conference report/proceedings