This year’s INFORMS Annual Meeting will be held October 16–19, 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana and will feature several changes to how content is delivered. One of the most significant changes is the Organizing Committee’s goal to schedule all technical sessions on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. This shift allows each day to offer five (5) 75-minute-long tracks, with approximately 80 sessions in each track.
The Meeting will maintain a balance of research presentations delivered as regular-talks (with 4 such talks in a single session), flash-talks (with 10 such talks in a single session) and posters. Flash-talk and poster authors will also have the option to upload a 15-minute archival video which supports their content.
This shift in format also impacts the roles and responsibilities of the Cluster and Session chairs, which we’ve highlighted below.
Cluster Chair Updates
As in previous years, each Cluster Chair will appoint Session Chairs to ensure the organization of a coherent cluster.
- Cluster Chairs will task each Session Chair to identify presenters for their session(s) with regular talks.
- Cluster Chairs will also task each Session Chair to identify a minimum of one (1) flash-talk presenter. These will later be merged at the Cluster level and formed into flash-talk sessions. If desired, Cluster Chairs may appoint Session Chairs exclusively for organizing flash talk sessions.
- Cluster Chairs will be expected to monitor the cluster-wide tally of flash talks, with an effort to ensure that for every eight (8) full regular sessions, the cluster puts together at least one (1) full flash talk session.
- Cluster Chairs are encouraged to appoint an Associate Cluster Chair who will assist with the promotion and awareness of flash talks while also explaining the updated conference format to any inquiring authors.
- Cluster Chairs should have all Session Chairs entered by March 14.
The Program Committee is also encouraging Societies and Sections to run their Award Sessions in a flash-talk format as the papers underlying those presentations will have already been evaluated carefully by the jury during the selection process.
Session Chair Updates
As in previous years, each Session Chair invited by a Cluster Chair, will be tasked with organizing a session comprised of regular talks, and will also be responsible for identifying at least one (1) talk to be presented as flash talk.
- The INFORMS abstract submission platform will have distinct entries for regular-talk sessions and flash-talk sessions to be filled by the Session Chair.
- If a Session Chair is organizing a regular-talk session, they should enter a minimum of one (1) flash-talk presenter, along with their four (4) regular-talks, in the session. The platform will allow them to clearly distinguish the flash talk during submission.
- A Session Chair is encouraged to explicitly announce the flash talk presentation option at the time of author invitation and prioritize finding the flash talk presenters. The Cluster Chair and/or Associate Cluster Chair will help, to ensure that high quality flash talk sessions are assembled at the cluster level thanks to the efforts of all Session Chairs cluster-wide.
- All Session Chairs should have speaker information entered by May 2, 2022. After that date, flash talks entered by Session Chairs will be merged at the Cluster level and formed into flash-talk sessions, which may include contributed flash-talks.
- Presenters need to enter abstracts by May 16, 2022. Please note: This year we have a one presentation per registrant rule.
- The Program Committee is also encouraging Societies and Sections to run their Award Sessions in a flash-talk format as the papers underlying those presentations will have already been evaluated carefully by the jury during the selection process.
We know that change is not easy, and we are excited to explore this new format. We have seen success with concepts like flash-talks that the Decision Analysis and Health Applications Societies have been utilizing during the past several years. Thank you in advance for your commitment in making the 2022 INFORMS Annual Meeting a rewarding experience for all participants. If you have any questions, please reach out to feel free to reach out to us.
Important Dates
All deadlines are as of 11:59pm EST
March 14Deadline for Cluster Chairs to enter Session Chairs
May 2Deadline for Session Chairs to enter Presenters
May 16Deadline for Submitting Contributed/Sponsored & Committee’s Choice Abstracts
July 20
Speaker Registration Deadline
If speakers are not registered by this date, the speaker will be notified that the presentation will be removed from the program. Any change to the presenting author must also be made by this date.
