This is your opportunity to host the world’s largest conference on astronomy communication: Communicating Astronomy with the Public. Submit your Letter of Intent for the 2024 Conference.
Renewed Chance to Host
Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) Conference 2024
The first hybrid CAP Conference, held online and in Sydney, Australia, is coming to a close. Building off of the momentum of CAP 2022, we hope to expand the possibilities for CAP 2024. To that end, the deadline to submit a Letter of Intent to host the 2024 Communicating Astronomy with the Public conference has been extended to 30 September 2022.
These conferences, held at least every two years, are co-organised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Commission C2 — Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) and the IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO).
Letters of Intent (LoI) and full Proposals to host a CAP Conference are considered roughly two years before the event. The call to host CAP 2024 is now open, and applications are in two steps:
First, submit a Letter of Intent (LoI) via this form.
After the approval of the Letter of Intent (LoI) by the CAP Conferences Organisers, then submit a full Proposal.
The deadline to submit the Letter of Intent to host CAP 2024 is 30 September 2022. You can read more details on how to become a CAP Conference host here.
Important dates for the selection of the host for CAP 2024 are:
by 31 October 2022 (23:59 UTC): contact selected applicants (request for full Proposals)
by 28 February 2023 (23:59 UTC): deadline to submit full Proposals
by 31 March 2023: public announcement of the winning bid
More information
The IAU is the international astronomical organisation that brings together more than 12 000 active professional astronomers from more than 100 countries worldwide. Its mission is to promote and safeguard astronomy in all its aspects, including research, communication, education and development, through international cooperation. The IAU also serves as the internationally recognised authority for assigning designations to celestial bodies and the surface features on them. Founded in 1919, the IAU is the world's largest professional body for astronomers.
The IAU Commission C2 is a think/do-tank that convenes the astronomy communication community and seeds initiatives to explore new ways to communicate astronomy with the public. Its mission is to: encourage and enable a much larger fraction of the astronomical community to take an active role in explaining what we do (and why) to our fellow citizens; act as an international, impartial coordinating entity that furthers the recognition of outreach and public communication on all levels in astronomy; encourage international collaborations on outreach and public communication; endorse standards, best practices and requirements for public communication.
The main goals of the IAU C2 CAP Conferences Working Group are to organise a Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) Conference and, co-organise the call for hosting the CAP Conference, select the winning bid and act as the Scientific Advisory Committee of the conference, establishing the theme and sub-themes of the conference, evaluating the abstracts and supervising the selection of invited speakers.
The IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach (OAO) is a joint project of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) and the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The mission of the OAO is to engage the public in astronomy through access to astronomical information and communication of the science of astronomy. This is implemented through a network of IAU National Outreach Coordinators (NOCs) and the IAU’s public engagement initiatives. The work of the OAO is about building bridges between the IAU and the global astronomy community of amateur astronomers, outreach professionals, educators, communicators, and the general public, and through international collaboration, to make the science of astronomy accessible to all.
Contacts
Lina Canas
CAP Conference Co-Organiser & OAO Director
IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach
Tel: +81-(0)422-34-3966
Email: lina.canas@nao.ac.jp
Kelly Blumenthal
CAP Conference Co-Organiser & OAO Deputy Director
IAU Office for Astronomy Outreach
Tel: +81-(0)80-8841-3569
Email: blumenthal.kelly@oao.iau.org
Ramasamy Venugopal
CAP Conference Co-Organiser & Co-Chair of CAP Conferences Working Group
IAU Office of Astronomy for Development
Tel: +27 60 776 3832
Email: rv@astro4dev.org
Samir Dhurde
CAP Conference Co-Organiser & Co-Chair of CAP Conferences Working Group
Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics
Tel: +91 8983336912
Email: samir@iucaa.in
