Chairing sessions is not about smartly stealing thunder; it is about making the speakers, the attendees and the co-chairs look smart.
Effective chairing includes the practicalities of introducing your co-chairs, the speakers/presenters and yourself, keeping time, and facilitating discussion. The actual challenge is to: engage the audience’s interest; create a sense of coherence throughout the diversity of presentations and speakers; ease the speakers’ job of establishing their credibility with the audience; create a constructive, respectful and professional atmosphere for discussion; and wrap up in a way that leaves everyone feeling good about the session. Successful chairing leaves the presenters and audience feeling that the session was worth the time they invested in it.
With all these aims in mind, herein, we address the challenge of chairing a session (thematic poster session, oral presentation and poster discussion) [1], and provide practical tips to overcome difficult situations and even turn them into advantages.
Chairing any session
Make sure you read all abstracts of the session beforehand and familiarise yourself with the areas of research involved. Try to prepare at least one question for each abstract, in case no questions come from the audience. In addition, think about the overarching topic of the session and how you could introduce it. Try to think how you could introduce each speaker. Preferably, discuss the session with your co-chair in advance by e-mail or telephone. If this does not work (like you, they are busy people and may be hard to reach), you could meet before the beginning of a …
