Due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the International Conference Organisation Committee has decided to hold the Data for Policy 2020 meeting virtually replacing the physical meeting scheduled for 15-16 September 2020 in London. The committee has also decided to cancel pre-conference workshops for this year originally planned for 14 September 2020. This decision was not taken lightly but we believe this is the correct decision since we are, first and foremost, committed to protecting our delegates’ health and safety while fulfilling our central purpose as a top international forum bringing together key stakeholders in this space.
Designing and delivering a virtual version of Data for Policy 2020 is clearly a new challenge for us and there are many questions to answer regarding the format of the virtual meeting, what it means for your participation, conference publications planned, registration fees, and more. Please be patient as we continue our work and plan next steps. As new information becomes available, we will share it on our website and social media accounts, and via email to our subscribers. For those already made travel arrangements for London in September please remember to cancel them.
Beyond practical considerations, we also believe the Data for Policy 2020 conference will be a great opportunity to also assess and review the data science responses to the current global pandemic. To this account we have recently added a further Special Track “Re-using data to address COVID-19 and Pandemics” to our conference call. This track will be chaired by Professor Stefaan Verhulst from GovLab at NYU.
We are committed to honouring the high-quality work of our authors and volunteers, and hence will now fully shift our efforts to the development and delivery of a successful virtual conference experience this year. Given the pioneering role of the Data for Policy community, we believe this experience will also enable us to experiment on more innovative and efficient ways to improve our future physical meetings as well.
Please also note we continue to accept general submissions until May 20th. Further details available on our conference website.
Thank you for your contributions in making Data for Policy 2020 conferences a top global forum and we look forward to meeting again virtually in September.
Sincerely,
Data for Policy Team