in collaboration with
is organizing a conference
The Democracy Exchange: Research and Practice in Dialogue
March 10–12, 2027
Wellesley College
Description
This conference will facilitate exchange of knowledge between researchers, practitioners, activists, and advocates with the goal of advancing democracy reform collaboratively.
Researchers will present the latest findings in topics such as voting theory, districting, deliberative democracy, and digital democracy while practitioners will share their experience with how to best translate academic work into action.
Topics will include: Ranked choice voting, open and top-k primaries, multi-member districts, proportional representation, citizens’ assemblies, deliberative polling, participatory budgeting, and digital democracy.
Speakers
Program
Wednesday, March 10th
6:00 pm
Conference dinner
7:00 pm
Opening Panel: What Makes Democracy Research Useful in Practice?
Thursday, March 11th
8:30 am
Coffee and registration
9:00 am
Session 1: Electoral Reform in Practice
12:00 pm
Lunch
1:20 pm
Session 2: Deliberative Democracy: Voice, Facilitation, and Scale
4:10 pm
Poster session and refreshments
Friday, March 12th
8:30 am
Coffee
9:00 am
Session 3: Participatory Budgeting: Turning Public Priorities into Funding Decisions
12:00 pm
Lunch
1:20 pm
Session 4: Collaborative Open Problems Session
Registration
1. Fill out this registration form.
If you would like to be considered for financial assistance to attend the conference or if you are a student, researcher, or practitioner who wants to contribute a poster, the deadline to fill out the form is January 8, 2027. The organizing committee will let you know whether your poster has been accepted to the conference by January 22.
Otherwise the deadline is February 12, 2027.
2. Pay the $50 registration fee by visiting this page.
After filling out the required fileds and adding the registration fee to your cart, select “shopping cart” at the top of the page to check out.
If you are affiliated with Wellesley College, you do not need to pay the registration fee.
Logistics
Coming Soon
We invite all participants interested in presenting a poster to complete this section, and especially encourage students (graduate and undergraduate) to do so. Posters may describe research, ongoing projects, or practical work related to democracy, including initiatives led by government agencies, nonprofit organizations, advocacy groups, and other practitioners.
To be considered, you must fill out the registration form by January 8, 2027; the form will ask you for your (tentative) poster title and abstract. The organizing committee will let you know whether your poster has been accepted to the conference by January 22. If accepted, you will need to upload the poster file to a Google drive folder. Wellesley College will print the poster and provide an easel to display it. All posters will be displayed during the entire conference.
For logistical questions such as registration, housing, transportation, and financial support, please contact
- Susan Lange at slange2@wellesley.edu.
For questions about the program, please contact
- Bailey Flanigan at baileyf@mit.edu or Ismar Volić at ivolic@wellesley.edu.
Conference Organizers
