Edinburgh 2008

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Exchanging Ideas on Europe 2008
Rethinking the European Union

Guidelines for Research Panel Chairs

Organising a Research Panel | Invited to Chair a Research Panel | At the Conference

Organising a Research Panel

If you are organising a research panel, your main role as Chair before the conference is to act as a co-ordinator.

We expect to receive a paper proposal from each of the paper-givers in your panel before the deadline.

Occasionally, for a multitude of reasons, paper-givers will withdraw from the panel. If this happens, please alert us as soon as possible. We will liaise with you to find a replacement paper if possible. Clearly, in these circumstances, it is important to sort out these problems as early as possible.

Invited to Chair a Research Panel

If you have been invited to Chair a Panel, your main task is to make yourself known to each of the paper-givers and to read their papers before the conference.

At the Conference

The Research Sessions throughout the conference will be 90 minutes in length.

Assuming that there are three papers in the panel, you should allow 15 minutes for each person to present their paper. This will allow the audience up to 45 minutes to ask questions and to provide feedback.

If a speaker talks for too long, you should interrupt them - be firm.

Ideally, you should let each speaker know when they have 5 minutes left. A piece of paper with ‘5 minutes left’ written on it, is a simple device for doing this, without interrupting the flow of the speaker’s presentation.

When taking questions from the audience, do encourage questions to all of the paper-givers. If all of the questions from the floor seem to be biased towards a particular speaker, you should ask the audience if there are any questions for the other paper-givers.