Program – commission C2

CAP 2021 is organised under the main theme of “Communicating Astronomy with the Public in the Age of Global Crises”, acknowledging the challenges our community had to face during recent times and promoting the ways in which our community has adapted. The conference will last four days, from Monday, 24 May until Thursday, 27 May, with each day scheduled in a different timezone to allow our global CAP community to participate at a time suitable to them.

Day 1, 13:00 – 18:00 UTC — 24 May 2021
Day 2, 07:00 – 12:00 UTC — 25 May 2021
Day 3, 01:00 – 06:00 UTC — 26 May 2021
Day 4, 19:00 – 00:00 UTC — 27 May 2021

The conference will feature four keynote speakers:

John Besley, Ellis N. Brandt Professor of Public Relations, Michigan State University, USA — Communication strategies for scientists and science communicators (Kavli Keynote)
Ewine van Dishoeck, President of the International Astronomical Union — IAU100: Celebrating a century of progress in astronomy
Prajval Shastri, Adjunct Professor at the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Australia — Our Obligations while Crafting our Science Communication Practice: Lessons from Investigating Gender Inequity
Travis Rector, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Alaska Anchorage, USA, — Astronomy’s place in the fight against climate change

Each day will start with a plenary session that will include the keynote speaker, as well as 4-5 plenary talks in a combination of live and pre-recorded talks. 161 oral presentations will be delivered in parallel sessions, which will take place each day after the plenary. These talks have been pre-recorded by the presenters and will be streamed on the conference platform at the allotted time. Attendees will thus be able to watch the (recorded) talks during the conference. Oral presentations will be grouped into 4 or 5 per session and there will be a live Q&A for those presenters at the end of each session.

There will be about 90 posters at the conference in the form of short, pre-recorded videos or Google slides. There is a dedicated section on the conference platform to display the posters which can be viewed at any time. Attendees will be able to contact the poster author or leave a message for them.

The conference will also feature five workshops and four panel discussions, each 1 hour long.