Session Types

Regular Panels with papers [90’]

Participation: fully in-person or hybrid. 

Regular Panels with papers are designed to connect participants around shared methodological interests, whether as developers or users of methods. Panels are embedded in a bottom-up programme structure shaped by the MethodsNET Communities through six Community-led tracks, while also accommodating submissions to an open track for proposals that do not align with a specific community. Panel sessions provide a space for exchanging methodological experiences, reflecting on challenges and solutions, and engaging in dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, including among scholars working on distinct substantive topics but confronting similar methodological issues.

The Conference welcomes the full range of methodological, theoretical, and empirical approaches across the social, behavioral, and human sciences, and remains open to contributions engaging with the evolving debates that continue to reshape research methods. Two main types of Papers are expected:

• Papers focused on methods
• Papers focused on empirical applications that exploit a specific (set of) method(s).

We welcome both individual Paper proposals and Panel with Papers proposals.

Participatory sessions [90’]

Participation: fully in-person or hybrid.
The participatory session chairs and facilitators (if any) must attend in-person.

Such participatory sessions enable participants to engage more actively with innovative research methods through debates, simulations, games, experiments, brainstorming, creative activities, group modeling, round table discussions, and more. These sessions are designed to go beyond the presentation and Q&A format. They actively involve the audience and can cover a diverse range of topics aimed at advancing research methodologies and fostering meaningful collaboration.

These sessions have previously been leveraged by researchers to receive inputs on novel or emerging methodologies in a more open-ended format, for example through collaborative protocol design. Such participatory sessions can also be dedicated to teaching/pedagogy topics and thus involve methods teachers.

Short Training Sessions [90’]

Participation: in-person and remote/hybrid

The short training sessions are designed for participants in early research careers to build a foundational methodological understanding and for experienced researchers to explore different research methods and their implications. It offers a focus on learning experience through expert led training, presentations, and case studies, in a concise format.

By the end of the session, attendees will gain essential insights and actionable takeaways to apply in their own research and practice. The attendees will have ample opportunities to have informal discussions among themselves and with the expert(s), possibly leading to identifying interesting MethodsNET Communities and potential collaborations.

Demonstration Sessions [90’]

Participation: in-person and remote/hybrid

The demonstration sessions offer practical hands-on exploration of recent advancements in a method, methodology, tool, or framework. Each session should be focused on a cutting-edge development in human sciences. It may also be about AI-based methods and tools or their application in human sciences, or it could be a pedagogical demonstration to the attention of methods teachers, etc.

The demonstrations are specifically designed from the end-user’s perspective as a step-by-step guide that allows participants to gain deeper insights into methods capabilities, limitations and potential for future research.

Methods Labs [90’ or 2 consecutive 90’ slots]

Participation: in-person

Methods labs are designed to actively engage participants through hands-on activities, discussions, and problem-solving exercises. Unlike traditional presentations, these sessions emphasize two-way engagement, allowing attendees to apply concepts in real time. By fostering collaboration and direct involvement, methods labs create a dynamic learning environment where participants will experiment with new ideas and approaches.

This lab format could also be dedicated to a methods teaching lab by a seasoned pedagogue, to the attention of fellow methods teachers.

MethodsNET Communities’ networking & brainstorming parallel sessions [90’]

Participation: in-person and remote/hybrid

These lively interactive parallel sessions, organized bottom up by the Co-convenor teams of the 6 respective MethodsNET Communities, will enable diverse members of these communities to gather in-person and to deliberate, exchange views on projects to come, brainstorm on further activities/initiatives that could be supported by MethodsNET, etc.

Each session will be open both to those who are already Community members (as paid MethodsNET members) and those who aspire to join them.

‘Meet the expert’ speed dating session [90’]

Participation: in-person

This session is designed to enable each interested learner/user to receive quality – “speed dates”, i.e. short, quality time appointments – with a series of methods experts whose expertise matches their interests. In due time before the Conference, all interested learner/user participants will be asked to fill in a short form to indicate some key methodological challenges they face and 5methods-related questions they grapple with.

A very broad set of diverse methods experts will be selected, and each expert will be placed at one separate table. During the session itself, each learner/user will receive a pre-set sequence of “speed dates”, following a very precise timing: a sound signal will indicate the rotation for the successive speed dates. The number of rotations, and thus the duration of each successive speed date, will be determined in due time.

Book launch sessions

Participation: in-person and remote/hybrid

[work-in-progress – info follows soon]