Call for Submissions

79th Annual AAPOR Conference

Reshaping Democracy's Oracle: Transforming Polls, Surveys, and the Measurement of Public Opinion in the Age of AI

May 15 - 17, 2024

Call for Papers, Methodological Briefs, Posters, Panels, Roundtables, and Idea Groups

Submission Deadline Extension: Wednesday, November 15, 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET

The American Association for Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) is thrilled to announce that its 80th Annual Conference will be held at Union Station, St. Louis, May 14 through Friday, May 16, 2025. Don't miss this opportunity to participate in the premier forum for the exchange of advances in public opinion and survey research.

Perched over a chasm, the Oracle of Delphi served as the ancient world's source for divine wisdom and predictions about the future. Today, research insights from political polls and surveys are our modern-day public opinion oracles, providing valuable insights into people’s intentions, attitudes, and beliefs. Does our public trust the data we systematically divine? Can Pythia-the-AI bring us closer to Apollo?

The 2025 AAPOR Conference, "Reshaping Democracy's Oracle," will discuss the promises and perils that artificial intelligence (AI) and our information technology landscape have in changing political polling and survey research. Central to this theme is the role of new technologies in understanding voter behavior and an exploration of political polls given 2024 election outcomes around the world. Through short courses and the conference program, we will also examine the use of large language models, natural language processing, and machine learning algorithms to enhance and disrupt the ways we measure public opinion. Additionally, we will discuss ethical considerations, biases, and the importance of standards and transparency in an age of increasingly AI-driven insights and a potential "general purpose technology" (GPT) paradigm-shift.

For the conference, we encourage members and non-members to submit papers on a range of topics. We will have tracks on 2024 polling and elections as well as how AI is shaping surveys and public opinion research. (Some space will be saved for U.S. election-related papers that cannot make the regular submission deadline.) The 2025 conference is also the first since 2019 that the World Association for Public Opinion Research (WAPOR) will be located in the same city–and the same hotel–as AAPOR, so we encourage papers interested in measuring the opinions of non-US, multinational, multicultural, and multiregional publics.

Like the Oracle of Delphi, survey practitioners and pollsters find themselves balanced on a crevasse; on the cusp of an AI revolution and firmly in the age of hyperconnectivity, technology changes how we create, communicate, and make sense of our lives. So, too, will it change how we gather, analyze, and interpret public opinion data. As AI continues to advance at an unprecedented pace, it is poised to reshape how the public reacts to surveys and polls as well as how we understand public sentiment, forecast election outcomes, and inform policy decisions. At the 2025 AAPOR Conference, It’s imperative that we come together to discuss where AAPOR can lead and educate as well as how we can advocate for standards and data quality in this new age.

Submissions: The proposal submission form is unique to each submission type but generally requests author contact information, title, presentation track, keywords describing the content of the presentation, and an abstract of no more than 500 words. To promote broad conference participation, an individual may not submit more than three proposals as first author, regardless of the proposed format of the submission. For specific descriptions and requirements for each proposal type, as well as to submit your proposal, please use the expandable sections below.

All abstracts should be submitted electronically by Wednesday, November 15, 2023, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Space on the program is limited. There will be some individual submissions that cannot be integrated into a session and will, unfortunately, not be accepted. Authors of individual papers have a greater chance of acceptance if they are also willing to be considered for a methodological brief or poster.

To promote diversity of thought within sessions, we encourage panel & roundtable submissions to include people from multiple organizations.

Additional details and instructions for submitting an abstract for the 2025 AAPOR Conference can be found on the AAPOR website.

Inquiries: Questions concerning the AAPOR conference or the proposal submission process should be directed to AAPOR Education Manager, Ryan Green, rgreen@aapor.org.

PLEASE NOTE: You will be required to sign in with your AAPOR.org account credentials after clicking 'Begin a Submission'.

Setting Up an AAPOR.org Account
If you do not already have an account on AAPOR.org perhaps from your membership, merchandise purchase, or past event registration, you will need to create one to begin a submission. You do not need to be a member of AAPOR to create an account. It is free and used for online business transactions and communications with AAPOR. The link to create an account can be found here. You can also find it in the top right-hand corner on most AAPOR.org web pages through the red 'Member Login' button. When prompted to log in, please click 'Set Up an Account' and follow the prompts.

Steps and Instructions:

1. Idea Groups

   The goal of these groups is to facilitate informal discussion (not formal research presentations) of shared topics and questions with which AAPOR members are engaging. These groups are not meant to be meetings of individuals who are already collaborating on a project or idea, but to bring together a diverse group of researchers and practitioners to discuss a topic of common interest.

   Submitters must include the names of five individuals who will commit to participate in this event.

2. Methodological Briefs

   Methodological Briefs are intentionally short (8-10 minutes) oral presentations of original methodological research that highlight significant empirical results (e.g., one table) with less theoretical elaboration than a full paper. A 500-word abstract is required at submission. Authors are strongly encouraged to distribute a short paper on request (e.g., 5-8 pages in length). In addition, authors will be asked to make their presentation materials such as PowerPoint slides, available to session attendees prior to or at the conference.

3. Panels

   Contributed Panel Sessions are organized sessions that focus on a common theme and include 4-5 participants in addition to the panel organizer. The organizer of the panel should enter up to a 500-word abstract into the system discussing the issues to be addressed and their importance. In addition, the panel organizer should collect the submission details for each of the presented abstracts in the session. The organizer will enter these details into the submission on behalf of the presenting authors.

   An abstract is required for each presented submission in the panel.

   To promote diversity of thought within sessions, we encourage panel & roundtable submissions to include people from multiple organizations.

4. Papers

   Papers involve original research featuring an oral address of 12-15 minutes. Papers with presenting collaborators will have up to 20 minutes for their presentations. A 500-word abstract is required at submission. Authors are strongly encouraged to prepare a formal paper in advance of the conference (usually 12-15 pages in length) to distribute on request. In addition, authors will ask to make their presentation materials, such as PowerPoint slides, available to session attendees prior to or at the conference.

5. Posters

   Posters are presentations of original research that relay on visual display (i.e., posters). A 500-word abstract is required for submission. In addition, authors will be asked to make their poster materials available to session attendees prior to or at the conference.

6. Roundtables

   Roundtables encourage live facilitation conversations among AAPOR members about professional development and current issues facing our field (such as being a peer reviewer, interacting with the media, leadership issues, diversity and inclusion training, presenting oneself professionally, etc.) The proposal should identify the leaders of the round table as well as identify discussion topics and questions, and the need for such a discussion.

7. General Instructions

   No names or titles should be included in the abstract text. Names will be automatically hidden during the abstract review process and will be automatically inserted and properly formatted upon publication.

   Presenting authors will be automatically informed of the unique ID numbers and passwords assigned to their abstracts. Abstracts may be viewed and modified at any time between submission and the deadline, using the assigned ID# and password.

   Click here to get an overview of all tracks and their descriptions

   Technical Support

   For help in submitting an abstract online, Contact technical support.

Notice to Federal Employees: The AAPOR Annual Conference conforms to the OPM definition of a "developmental assignment." It is intended for educational purposes; over three quarters of time scheduled is for planned, organized exchange of information between presenters and audience, thereby qualifying under section 4101 of title 5, United States Code as a training activity. The AAPOR Conference is a collaboration in the scientific community, whose objectives are to provide a training opportunity to attendees; teach the latest methodology and approaches to survey research best practices; make each attendee a better survey researcher, and; maintain and improve professional survey competency.