Have you ever wondered how workshops are chosen for the IACP Annual Conference and Exposition? Have you found yourself wondering what it takes to speak at an IACP conference? Or do you have a great topic idea you want to share in front of an audience?

In January, IACP will open a Call for Presentations for IACP 2017 in which anyone can submit a presentation proposal for consideration. We receive hundreds of proposals and each one is peer-reviewed to determine the approximately 200 workshops presented at the conference. Reviewers are looking for current topics that can apply to a diverse audience. The conference is a microcosm of IACP so topics should apply to a global audience including federal, state, local, tribal, and university agencies.

Submitting a presentation proposal is easy and is done online through our conference website. A proposal consists of the presentation title, proposed speakers, description, learning objectives, and methodology. Our Call for Presentations breaks each of these items into their own steps and you can easily save your work and come back to it later. The last step before reviewing and submitting the proposal is to choose the most appropriate track for the topic. Our workshops are categorized into tracks to help attendees choose among over 200 workshops onsite. Our tracks are specific to roles (i.e. Legal Officers, Physicians, Psychologists, etc). or areas (i.e. Foundation, Companion, Technology, Smaller Agency). We also have a Leadership Track that can touch upon all of these other categories in a general sense.

Proposal Tips

• Title – Titles should be short, grab someone’s attention, and give the audience a sense of the topic.
• Description – The description is used to explain the topic and IACP publishes this to market the programming. It should provide an overview of what the audience will hear and learn at the workshop.
• Proposed Speakers – Speakers should be both within law enforcement and support law enforcement agencies. If a proposed topic is specific to the executive level, an active or recently retired law enforcement executive should speak. The IACP audience wants to learn from its peers. If a topic is about a specific event, the attendees want first-hand knowledge of the event from someone on the front lines.
• Learning Objectives – Workshops should be informative. Attendees want to leave with new ideas, a new perspective, or new resources. These objectives help the reviewers and audience understand what they can expect to learn during the workshop.
• Methodology – This helps reviewers understand how the topic will be presented (i.e. using PowerPoint, videos, first-hand interviews, etc.). It also can explain what research was done on the topic.

If you have a proposed topic, please submit it when our Call for Presentations opens January 4, 2017. The submission link will be available on the conference website and will close February 28, 2017. If you have any questions regarding the proposal process, please email Tracy Woodhead, IACP Conference Program Manager. Share your knowledge with others.