The Canadian Society for Ecological Economics’ 2005 conference, Windows of Opportunities for Advancing Ecological Economics, was immensely successful. The conference brought together 260 scholars, researchers, activists, students and decision-makers from across Canada and the world for a rich program of plenaries, parallel sessions, and other events at York University from October 27 to 29, 2005 .

Objectives Achieved

The conference achieved all of its ambitious objectives:

1. The conference successfully facilitated the transfer of knowledge across disciplinary boundaries by integrating into the program an interdisciplinary, multigenerational, and bilingual (English/French) group of scholars spanning various themes within the social sciences, humanities and natural sciences.
    
2. The conference identified and helped develop research opportunities by highlighting gaps in knowledge within various areas of ecological economics that were represented in the conference program and disseminating these results via the conference website and a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Bioeconomics.
    
3. The conference enhanced the profile and visibility of ecological economics research in Canada by demonstrating its importance to a conference audience that will include significant representation from the public, private, and non-profit sectors within Canada and from abroad.
    
4. All objectives were pursued with an emphasis on cultivating student research capacity and scholarly presentation experience by integrating student and non-student presentations in sessions, by including students on the organizing committee, and by minimizing registration fees while prioritizing funding to students and recent graduates.

Presentations Made and Results Disseminated

The conference program incorporated 84 presentations into 33 sessions. Three of these sessions provided a structured discussion but without distinct presentations: a Friday video session shown in parallel to the poster session, and two lunchtime sessions. Table 1 provides a breakdown of the number and type of presentations.

Session stewards were hired to record notes in each of the 23 parallel sessions. Notes included the questions, answers, and discussion attributable to each of the 64 presentations. Stewards paid particular attention to recording issues that require further research and could inform a future research agenda. All notes recorded by session stewards were uploaded to the conference website and are being analyzed for common themes that will inform the content of future CANSEE conferences and events.

Table 1 : Number and Type of Presentations Made

Each presenter was asked to upload a copy of the paper and presentation or other supporting material to the conference website for others to be able to read. As of November 20 2005 , authors of 57 of the 84 presentations have uploaded files. The files appear along with the abstract of the presentation and notes that were recorded for that presentation by the session steward. These are all freely available on the conference website and are indexed by the major search engines, including Google and MSN . This electronic means of disseminating results has proven a fast and reliable way of making conference results available to the world’s research communities.

Plenary presentations were webcast in real-time to registrants who were unable to attend in person and to all registrants as an archive. The webcast provides audio and video feed, including the slides or other visual aids that were used by the presenter.

A special issue of the Journal of Bioeconomics will be co-edited by two of the conference organizing committee members and will feature four or five papers presented at the conference. The papers will be chosen on the basis of providing a good survey of the cutting edge of ecological economics research and scholarship. Authors of other presented papers will be encouraged by the conference secretariat to submit to other journals such as Ecological Economics and International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment, whose editors attended the conference and shared publishing strategies and opportunities during a special Saturday lunchtime session.

Analysis of Participants

Most conference registrants were from Canada. Participants from abroad resided mostly in the United States of America. About one quarter of all registrants were students, followed by roughly equal proportions of professors, public servants, and other people from businesses, non-governmental or non-profit organizations or other types of institutions. Table 2 details the country of residence of all participants and their self-identified occupations.

Table 2 : Participants by Country of Residence

A disaggregation of Canadian participants reveals strong pan-Canadian representation, from cost to coast to coast. Most participants were from Ontario , followed by Québec, British Columbia, and Alberta, as elaborated in Table 3 for all Canadian participants.

Table 3 : Canadian Participants by Province of Residence

Roughly equal proportions of men and women attended in the conference. Participants were asked to choose from one of three possible salutations: Mr, Ms, or Dr. Table 4 shows that slightly more people chose Ms than Mr. Student participants were more likely to be women than men and the opposite was true for participants representing business, non-profit or non-governmental organizations.

Table 4 : Participants by Salutation as a Proxy for Gender

Disciplinary boundaries represented at the conference included accounting, biology, business administration, economics (including ecological, environmental, agricultural, and natural), environmental science and studies, education, geography, meteorological sciences, and philosophy.

Most discussion took place in English but French was also an official language of the conference. Real-time interpretation was provided from English to Mandarin for the first plenary, Steady State Macroeconomics, for the roughly 20 visiting scholars from China who attended just that event (these participants are not included in the country breakdown in Table 2 since they did not individually register).

Environmental Impact Minimized

The conference demonstrated leadership in how an event can be organized so that its environmental impact is minimized. The event was certified carbon-neutral by Tree Canada , meaning that the greenhouse gas emissions generated by participant travel, accommodations, and the events of the conference will be offset over ten years by afforestation of 683 trees. Tree Canada has contracted the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority to conduct the afforestation in the Ottawa Valley .

The organizers paid careful attention to minimizing the amount of waste generated by hospitality events such as refreshment breaks, lunches, and the optional Friday evening dinner. The plenaries were web-broadcast in real-time and also available as an archive to all registered participants so that people could participate in part of the conference program without necessarily travelling to Toronto .

Financing Optimized

The entire conference was produced on a balanced budget of about $70,000 (CDN).

About $13,000 was collected in registration fees. Registration fees were kept as low as possible without neglecting the quality of administration, promotion, food, and the venue. Plenary presenters were not charged registration nor were students of York University or members of the conference organizing committee. Registration fees for non-York students were set to the marginal cost of their participation ($40) that accounted for the cost of materials including food.

About $57,000 was obtained from the following sponsors: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Natural Resources Canada, a tripartite partnership between Parks Canada Agency, the Canadian Tourism Commission, and the Tourism Industry Association of Canada, Environment Canada, the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, Jacques Whitford Ltd., and York University and its Faculty of Environmental Studies.

Table 5 : Summary of Conference Expenditures

Table 5 summarizes how all the funding was expended.

About $25,000 was spent on travel and accommodation subsidies for presenters who were unable to secure sufficient funding on their own. The organizing committee prioritized funding to presenting students and recent graduates, followed by independent researchers or those who are affiliated with non-governmental or non-profit organizations with limited travel / conference budgets. Without this travel and accommodation subsidy, many of the presenters would not have been able to attend.

More than 80% of the personnel expenditures funded student employment.

Feedback Noted

Participants were encouraged to provide positive and negative feedback during and after the conference. Participants were impressed with the high quality of the conference website that allowed participants to login and review all details about their registration, funding, accommodations, uploaded files, abstracts, and sessions being stewarded. Participants appreciated the efforts to minimize the environmental impact of the event. Participants noted the high quality of the program while commenting that it was difficult to choose one of six concurrent sessions to attend since all appeared worthwhile.

Some presenters suggested concluding the conference with a plenary session rather than with parallel sessions. The organizing committee agreed with this suggestion and recommends it to organizers of future CANSEE events. Many participants were hoping that all of the presenters would have uploaded their presented paper. The organizers contacted all presenters to encourage them to upload their paper or presentation. Where authors had not uploaded files, in most cases they were still editing their paper or soliciting approval from their employer to post it for public viewing. Some presenters expressed interest in responding to the notes taken by session stewards that appears on the website under their abstract. The organizers are willing to modify the steward notes to record responses from the presenter.

Many participants expressed interest in obtaining a VCD or DVD of the video, audio, and slide feed of the webcast plenaries. The organizers are exploring the feasibility of producing this on a cost-recovery basis.

Overall the 2005 CANSEE conference was a highly successful event. It was the most ambitious and successful of the six conferences organized to date by CANSEE. The conference organizers have used every reasonable opportunity to thank the sponsors, the organizers, the presenters, and all the guests who attended.

Sincerely,

Eric Miller
November 30, 2005
CANSEE VP Programs and 2005 Conference Secretariat