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We are pleased to announce that ºÚÁÏÍøsuccessfully held the first phase of the third edition of its Regional Dialogues with national and regional political science associations (collective members). Five Regional Dialogue meetings were held virtually in June 2024 to foster stronger ties between ºÚÁÏÍøand its collective members from Africa, the Americas, Asia-Oceania and Europe. 

Each meeting was attended by representatives of ºÚÁÏÍøcollective members from these regions as well as ºÚÁÏÍøPresident Pablo Oñate, the Chair of the Committee on Regional Dialogues, Emilia Palonen, and the Membership, Research and Strategy Senior Director, Mathieu St-Laurent. The meetings were chaired by ºÚÁÏÍøExecutive Committee member(s).

This first phase of the third Regional Dialogue, under the theme Sharing of best practices in the regions in transforming times for association membership, covered the following topics:

• Membership challenges across different generations and effective pull factors for members;
• The role of associations in academic publishing, including the evolution of publishing practices such as digitalization and open access;
• The role of audiovisual communication within associations, including the use of online or hybrid meetings, podcasts, videos, and social media;
• Other relevant regional topics raised by national associations.

The second phase of the third edition will be held at the beginning of 2025. The outcomes of these meetings will be presented at a special session held in conjunction with the 2025 ºÚÁÏÍøWorld Congress of Political Science in Seoul, South Korea, where the chairs of each Regional Dialogue will present their main conclusions.

Background

The first Regional Dialogues meetings were held virtually between October 2020 and March 2021. They were hosted by the ºÚÁÏÍøSecretariat and designed to facilitate discussion of the impact of COVID-19 on national political science associations and on teaching at universities. Building on the success of the first meetings, ºÚÁÏÍøorganized the second edition in 2022 to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on national political science associations and diversity and gender equality. The ºÚÁÏÍøRegional Dialogues have since become a regular activity on the ºÚÁÏÍøagenda.

Hosting regional dialogues offers an online communications platform that considers time zones, while advancing discussions on general topics that draw a reasonable number of participants, and on specific regional issues. Smaller regional discussion groups also allow ºÚÁÏÍøto elicit more feedback from our 59 collective members, considering each member’s realities and challenges.