Date/Time
Date(s) - 25/09/2025
0:00
Categories
Full conference 26th – 30th October 2026, Lille, France
The EES biennial conference is the Society’s flagship event, attracting up to 1000 delegates from Europe and globally, to debate, share learnings and engage with state-of-the-art developments in the theory, practice and methodology of evaluation. Our forthcoming conference will take place in Lille, France, from 26th to 30th October 2026 (two days of Professional Development Workshops followed by three days of the full conference). The provisional conference theme is “Evaluative Thinking and European Democracy: New Methods, Systems Approaches, and Responsiveness for Successful and Inclusive Policies”. Our theme and the three ‘strands’ respond to the turbulence of these times, driven by polarisation, misinformation, populism, authoritarianism and polycrises that are profoundly affecting social, economic, environmental and political stability.
The 2026 EES conference will bring together thought leaders, practitioners, commissioners and methodological innovators in an event that has inclusivity, participation and evidence for informed democratic governance at the core of its debates. For this major event, EES is inviting expressions of interest in the role of Conference Programme Coordinator. The Programme Coordinator will be actively supported by the EES Board and, in particular, the Board Conference team. The work will be facilitated by EES’ Professional Conference Organiser, Kuoni Tumlare, who will be responsible for the logistical organisation of the event and administrative support.
Tasks
- Together with the EES Board and Board Conference Team, contribute to the selection and invitation of keynote speakers;
- Together with the EES Board and Board Conference Team, liaise with the conference outreach and communications team, who will engage the community and encourage widespread support for the event.
- Manage the conference calls for abstracts and proposals. We envisage two calls: a first call in the autumn this year, inviting brief proposals from experts in the field to run a conference strand on a topic relevant to the conference theme. The strand will comprise conference sessions, each of 1.5 hours and running consecutively normally over a half day or, exceptionally, a full day. The strand leader will be responsible for selecting speakers, abstracts of their inputs and choice of the modality of each of the sessions (e.g. panel, fishbowl etc). Thematic Working Group leaders will be specifically targeted to submit proposals under this call. A second call will be launched early in the New Year 2026, inviting abstracts from individuals for sessions independent of the designated strands of the first call. The Conference Coordinator will be responsible for the call documentation, identification of peer reviewers and oversight of the abstract selection process. The strand leaders under the first call, will be responsible for ensuring the quality, relevance and coherence of their proposed sessions. Hence, we envisage that only a ‘light’ peer review will be needed for these proposed strands, prior to confirmation of their acceptance. Abstracts submitted under the second call will be reviewed under a double-blind peer review process. This work will be supported by our Professional Conference Organiser, Kuoni Tumlare who will be responsible for the IT systems and administrative handling of the call and the abstracts.
- Liaise with strand leaders and EES Thematic working Groups (TWGs – the Conference Coordinator will communicate with strand leaders and TWGs and provide support where necessary to ensure coherence of their strands with the conference programme overall.
- Following acceptance and confirmation of abstracts for the conference across both the calls, the coordinator will prepare the conference schedule, providing a ‘slot’ for each 1.5 hour session (e.g. panel, fishbowl, innovative sessions, individual papers as grouped in threes) across 10-12 parallel slots and across the three full days of the conference. A key challenge of the programming task is to schedule with minimal conflicts of topic, whilst maintaining coherence within strands. Programming will also require scheduling of keynotes and any other special sessions identified in advance.
Qualifications
- Broad and deep acquaintance with (current) trends and developments in the evaluation community (both methodologically and thematically)
- Ability to manage and drive a group of peer reviewers
- Ability to organise abstracts in a coherent way and build a coherent programme
- Good command of English
- Previous experience in event organisation would be an advantage
- An interest in the conference theme and familiarity with associated issues.
The role is pro bono – in common with all members of the EES Board and other volunteers working for the Society, the work will be done on a voluntary basis. It will require an important effort, especially during the scheduling phase in summer 2026, but those of us who have done this task before have found it stimulating, exciting and a very valuable professional experience. It offers both a highly rewarding professional development opportunity through engagement with the state-of-the-art debates in the field as well as extending and deepening networking with evaluators and evaluation thought leaders across the globe. The successful candidates (we envisage a team of ideally two persons) will be co-opted by the EES Board for the duration of the conference preparations. Whilst we are unable to offer monetary payment, we can offer a substantial complimentary package of conference fee waiver, all travel and accommodation expenses for the conference and two-year membership of EES.
We welcome applications from qualified evaluators who are keen to contribute to the development of evaluation through support for this conference. We will be pleased to receive applications from long experience, mid-range and younger colleagues (Yees). Please note that applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, so we encourage you to submit as soon as possible.
At the latest, please submit your expression of interest by 25 September 2025 (by midnight CEST) to secretariat@europeanevaluation.org, with the subject “EES 2026 Conference Programme Coordinator”
Your application should contain:
– A motivation letter, taking into account the above mentioned points
– CV
– Experience with similar exercises
– 2 references
We look forward to receiving your expression of interest!