Justify Your Attendance

Seeking approval to attend IAIA17? Check out the justification toolkit below.

• Reasons why you should attend IAIA17
• Sample attendance justification letter
• Cost worksheet

WHY SHOULD YOU ATTEND IAIA17?

IAIA is the only interdisciplinary international association dedicated to impact assessment. Our annual conferences have brought together a unique mix of experts and professionals for over 36 years, and with over 1000 participants from 80+ countries expected in Montréal, IAIA17 will continue that tradition.

Networking: Expand and maintain contacts with your peers, clients, and those who conduct, evaluate, and require impact assessments. Participate in one or more of many social events in a unique and beautiful city.

Education & inspiration: Explore current best practice principles, recent tools, and techniques. Learn about cutting-edge IA theory and practice from around the world. Attend and participate in stimulating and thought-provoking discussions.

Options: Choose from numerous and diverse training courses, theme forums, technical visits, and over 100 sessions ranging from interdisciplinary approaches to topic-specific workshops.

Dissemination:  Present your work and get international feedback. Abstracts for papers and posters are invited through 31 October 2016; view full instructions at http://conferences.iaia.org/2017/submit-abstract.php.  After the conference, offer to give a presentation or report to staff within your own organization, sharing the materials, insights, and opportunities you received at IAIA17.

SAMPLE ATTENDANCE JUSTIFICATION LETTER

Use the sample letter below as a starting point for putting together your request for attendance. Simply copy and paste the document into an email or Word document and personalize it as necessary. This letter will help outline the value that attending IAIA17 provides not just to you as an impact assessment professional but to your entire organization.

Dear [NAME],

I would like to request approval to attend IAIA17: Impact Assessment’s Contribution to the Global Efforts in Addressing Climate Change to be held 4-7 April 2017 in Montréal, Canada (http://conferences.iaia.org/2017). This 4-day event is expected to gather over 1000 impact assessment professionals from 80+ nations.  It will give me an opportunity to share and learn best practices and network with a wide range of industry experts and peers from all over the world in a single trip

IAIA17 is the International Association for Impact Assessment’s 37th annual conference. It will be composed of plenaries with well-known keynote speakers (climate change expert and Nobel Prize winner Dr. Barry Smit is already confirmed), over 100 concurrent sessions, and a wide range of networking opportunities. Based on information from the IAIA web site, delegates at last year’s conference found the event to be valuable:

• 95% would recommend future IAIA conferences to their colleagues
• 89% met at least one person they planned to contact after the conference for something related to their work
• 87% felt they had acquired significant new information, knowledge, and/or techniques directly applicable to their work
• 84% shared information they obtained at the conference with colleagues and/or stakeholders

Because this will be IAIA’s 37th annual conference, I expect IAIA17 will be much the same, and I anticipate a great opportunity for my professional development.  [If the climate change theme relates directly or indirectly to your work, add a sentence to describe this.] I can attend sessions such as [insert applicable session names here; view submitted sessions at http://conferences.iaia.org/2017/sessions.php] that are directly applicable to my work and to our company. Practitioners and researchers from around the world will be presenting their case studies, results, and lessons learned. [Insert text here if you have submitted your own abstract and/or can showcase your organization!] Not only will I be able to learn from those experiences and gain new ideas and techniques, but I will also be able to meet and interact with these top-level IA experts and other local participants with whom our company could collaborate in the future.

There will also be pre-conference training courses and technical visits. I am particularly interested in [insert course or visit name], because [describe how it relates to your work].

The registration fee for this event is [see cost worksheet or registration form]. The non-member rate includes one year of IAIA membership, so the networking and learning opportunities will continue long after IAIA17 is over. I request approval for the registration fee plus travel costs. For your convenience, I have attached an estimated breakdown of the anticipated expenses.

Thank you in advance for your consideration and please let me know if you would like additional information about IAIA17. 

Regards,

[NAME]

COST WORKSHEET

To demonstrate a valuable return on investment, you should reinforce the long-term value of your conference expenses to your organization. To help you calculate your conference expenses, complete and share the cost worksheet below with your management to obtain approval.