Commission C2 WG CAP Conferences — Functional

Description

The main goal of this Working Group is to organise a Communicating Astronomy with the Public (CAP) Conference roughly every two years. The CAP Conference is the only large-scale, international conference for astronomy communication. Its long history and increasing popularity prove that there is a need for such an event. The conference aims to promote exchange of best practices and trends in public communication and encourage international collaborations in outreach and public communication.

The Working Group:

● Organises the call for hosting the CAP Conference.

● Selects the winning bid.

● Acts 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 Chair/Co-Chairs are also involved in the overall organisation of the conference.

The most recent CAP conference was organised virtually from 24-27 May 2021. Held over different time zones to accommodate participants from around the globe, the conference attracted 1346 registrations from 87 countries, a record by far for any CAP edition ever held. The conference also included 16 plenary talks, 163 oral presentations, 4 panel discussions, 5 workshops, and 75 digital posters. The recorded talks, panel discussions and video posters can be watched on the CAP YouTube channel.

Here is a link to CAP Youtube channel.

Documents:

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Functional Working Groups are Working Groups whose scope and purpose are institutional and naturally extend beyond the IAU three-year cycle.

These should have a maximum automatic lifespan of 6 years. Their Functional status should be revisited at that 6-year mark by the EC and a decision should be taken on whether the Functional WG should be renewed or terminated. The Functional WG Chair would also follow the 6-year term and the renewal of the Chair would also be discussed at this time.