CATTW
&
CFHSS
Special Interdisciplinary Conference

[Version française]

The Canadian Association of Teachers of Technical Writing (CATTW) is organizing a one-day interdisciplinary conference to address the issue of communicating knowledge from the social and human sciences to the public. We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers from researchers in the human and social sciences and from practitioners (including representatives of community organizations, researchers working in public and government organizations, presidents of learned societies, and graduate students, among others) who face the challenge of communicating specialized research to the public.

This conference will be held at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, on June 1, 2005, with the support of the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences (CFHSS).

Context
As Canada keeps building its civil society, citizens, policymakers, businesses, community organizations, workplace professionals, and other stakeholders depend on research in the social and human sciences to address the most pressing social problems, such as poverty, illiteracy, high dropout rates in schools, lack of social integration of minorities, and intolerance, to name but a few. Although research in the social and human sciences has grown rapidly, critics have argued that it has had little impact on the stakeholders who are to benefit from this research as they make decisions about the future of Canada's civil society. Despite very successful projects such as the Public Knowledge Project at the University of British Columbia, much work remains to be done to overcome the public perception that the millions of dollars invested in the social and human sciences do not sufficiently benefit the public. If this problem is not addressed, citizens and other stakeholders of research in the social and human sciences will not be able to reap the benefits of this research in strengthening Canada's civil society. Moreover, if the public does not perceive the impact of research in the social and human sciences as valuable, the public may be less inclined to fund it.

Knowledge in the social and human sciences tends to be highly contextualized, interactive, and collaborative. It is often tied to the values, beliefs, and goals of the communities in which it is created or used. As a result, applying research results to different contexts is rarely a simple matter of transfer or dissemination of neutral information that could easily be plugged into any human context. Likewise, ethical concerns in research communication differ as well, including such questions as empowerment, decolonization, sensitivity to local practices, collecting data with research participants rather than about them or speaking with rather than about or for research participants.

Conference Themes
In light of these particular characteristics of research in the social and human sciences, we invite researchers and practitioners to participate in a multidisciplinary conference to address one or several of the following issues:

• How has the impact of research in the social and human sciences been communicated to stakeholders so far?
• What particular practices of communication, collaboration, and interactive engagement characterize processes of research communication in the social and human sciences?
• How do these practices vary across different social and human sciences?
• How can these practices be facilitated? What are the main challenges?
• How can the impact of research in the social and human sciences be demonstrated to the public?
• How can information be effectively communicated to heterogeneous audiences?
• How can emerging technologies and in particular open and interactive spaces such as Weblogs and Wikis be used to facilitate public engagement in the social and human sciences?
• How do professional communicators and researchers in professional communication best participate in and add value to the knowledge-making cycle in a knowledge society?
• What opportunities for civic engagement in the knowledge society do professional communication researchers need to pursue?

Although all approaches are welcome, we are particularly interested in case studies.

Proposals will be accepted until January 1, 2005. Abstracts should not exceed 250 words. Please e-mail your abstract to: Céline Beaudet, President, CATTW (Celine.Beaudet@Usherbrooke.ca).