Workshop Proposals

IGF Guidelines for Workshop Proposals 2014

The IGF strives to be an open and inclusive forum, bringing all stakeholders together to exchange information and share best practices on public policy issues relating to Internet governance.

Each IGF meeting is organized following an open, bottom-up process, which allows anyone to volunteer as an organizer, moderator and/or panelist in the IGF meeting. This page is for the call for workshops.* 

The IGF Secretariat receives a large number of proposals each year, which are evaluated by the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG).  To ensure that the final result is a manageable number of high quality workshops, the MAG closely assesses all proposals according to the criteria below. Transparency, fairness, practicability, inclusiveness and efficiency of assessment are core values of the MAG’s evaluation process.  Any given workshop proposal may be accepted, declined, or asked to collaborate jointly with another workshop proposal covering the same substantive material.

The workshop selection process will take place in three stages.

1. Initial Screening: Workshop proposals will be accepted until 15 April 2014. Proposals submitted after the deadline of 15 April 2014, will not be accepted, nor will those, which fail to meet the minimum criteria.
2. Evaluation Process:MAG members will evaluate individual proposals prior to the MAG meeting (19-21 May 2014), which will focus on finalizing workshop evaluations, according to various considerations.
3. Discussion and Finalization: Final selection of proposals will occur during this meeting in May.

Stage 1: Initial Screening

All proposals are required to meet the criteria below. Proposals that do not objectively satisfy minimum criteria will be declined.

• Subject matter of the proposal must be of direct relevance to Internet Governance

• Proposal must be complete and ready for consideration, and include the following information:
  • Contact details of organizers,
  • IGF 2014 theme under which the proposal falls under,
  • Title of workshop,
  • Descriptive paragraph (maximum 250 words),
  • List of institutional co-organizers,
  • Links to reports from previous workshops
  • Type of session (e.g. workshop with panel, roundtable, capacity building session). A short description of some session formats for consideration can be found at this link. 
    
  • Duration of proposed session
  • Indication of up to 5 subject matter tags related to the workshop
  • List of speakers, panelists or other participating individuals; including email and phone contact details (Note: the proposal should indicate accurately whether each participant is “confirmed”, “invited” or “proposed”)

• Workshop proposers who have held a workshop in a previous IGF are required to have submitted a workshop report following that IGF. Proposers must provide the link of the workshop report in the online workshop proposal form.Workshop proposers who have held a workshop in a previous IGF are required to have submitted a workshop report following that IGF. Proposers must provide the link of the workshop report in the online workshop proposal form.
  
  

Following the MAG’s recommendations at the February 2014 meeting, no more than 3 proposals from any individual or institution will be accepted for consideration. MAG members may not submit proposals, but institutions associated with the MAG members may do so.

All proposals meeting the requirements listed above will be reviewed and rated by the MAG. Proposals that do not satisfy the minimum criteria will be declined. MAG members will have the opportunity to review and discuss declined proposals.

Stage 2: MAG Evaluation

In evaluating workshop proposals, each MAG member will grade the proposal on a scale from 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest) based upon the following considerations:

• Proposal is well thought-through and complete,
• Relevance of proposal to 2014 IGF themes,
  
• List of proposed speakers, and whether the speakers have been contacted by the proposer or confirmed,
• Is this the first time this individual or organization has made a proposal?,
• New workshop topic/innovative format (the “wow factor”),
• Developing country participation,
• Specificity in the problem/question/challenged to be addressed,
• Remote participation plans.
• Diversity of participants (gender, geography, stakeholder group, perspective),

MAG members who do not have an expertise in a particular field are not obliged to rate a proposal. If a MAG member rates a proposal 3 or below, he or she must provide a reason for doing so. Proposer names will not be given to MAG members when evaluating (anonymous), but indication will be provided if the proposer is from a developing country.

Upon receiving the MAG member scoring, with a target date of 2 May, the Secretariat will prepare a synthesis of the evaluation for MAG members by 12 May, in preparation for the in-person meeting on 19 May. The total score for each proposal will be the mean average of the grades received by MAG members. Proposals will be rank ordered.

Stage 3: Discussion and finalization

During the May meeting, MAG members will look at the results to ensure an overall balance of the themes/topics. It is possible that for certain proposals, which scored just below the threshold of space ability, the MAG will discuss whether to ask the proposers to make improvements to overcome deficiencies. Proposers will be contacted and asked to submit a revised proposal by 16 June.

The target date for publication of the tentitive programme is 30 June. 

Organizational principles

• When scheduling the overall meeting the IGF will strive to ensure that workshops and other events dealing with topics that are addressed in the main/focus sessions will not be scheduled at the same time as these sessions.
• Workshop organizers are encouraged to bring new faces to their workshops. In order to do so, they can consult with the resource persons list on the IGF website. The resource person list is available for viewing. (see: the list of resource persons for IGF 2013)
  
• All workshops will be Webcast and have real-time transcription. Organizers are encouraged to seamlessly include remote participants.

• The rooms reserved for workshops and all equipment, including a screen and a PC or laptop for projections and a projector (XGA/SVGA Data), will be available free of charge. Details related to the logistics will be made available in due course.

• Interpretation is only provided free of charge for the main/focus sessions. If workshops would like to have interpretation for their session, they would need to bear the cost. To have more information about arranging interpretation for your session, please contact the secretariat at igf[at]unog.ch

Reporting

The organizers should submit a summary report of their workshop within 48 hours of completing their session. Reports cannot be sent later than 2 weeks after the 2014 IGF annual meeting. As indicated in Stage 1, above, workshop organizers failing to meet this deadline will not be allowed to hold an event at the following IGF meeting.

If you plan to organize a workshop in the 2014 IGF meeting, The online form will be available on 25 March. The template with the questions is available.

 *Instructions for other session proposals such as Open Forums, Dynamic Coalition and Focus Session (see: formats description) will be published on the IGF web page in due course.