YSI Partnership Guidelines

Many YSI’ers have had success by organizing projects alongside bigger conferences in their field.
Doing so has allowed them access to speakers who would otherwise be difficult to invite, and allows little budgets to stretch a long way. But fruitful collaborations don’t always happen automatically.  When creating a new partnership, keep in mind the following guidelines:

Keep the goal in mind

The most fruitful partnerships allow both organizations to make meaningful progress towards their goals. When you are organizing on behalf of your working group, remember that your goal should be:

  • To chip away at a specific question
  • Create valuable connections among young scholars
  • To grow and/or strengthen your YSI working group

The way you structure your project should serve these goals. 

Aim for a distinct group and event

Create group spirit

The bigger the partner conference, the more important it is to prevent YSI and your participants from getting lost in the soup. It works well to:

  • Arrange for all young scholars to stay in the same hotel
  • Create a group chat for easy communication
  • Help everyone meet each other upon arrival 
  • Have meals together while the bigger conference is going on

Make it feel like YSI

When your participants arrive to your project, they should feel like they are entering the YSI community, not the annual conference of your partner. To accomplish this, it helps to: 

  • Host a zoom call in advance, so participants can start getting to know each other 
  • Have some time during which you have only YSI’ers in the room
  • Give a formal introduction to YSI and your working group
  • Print some YSI flyers
  • Discuss how they might stay involved with the working groups
  • Follow up afterwards with an email on next steps.

Run your own selections

Participants may be applying to present in the bigger conference as well, and that’s ok. But your project should be its own event, with its own application form and selection process. See this page for more information on selections.

If you place an “APPLY” button on your project page, that button should direct to a registration process that you and your scientific committee are managing, not to the registration page of the larger conference you are organizing next to.

 

Communicating with your Partner

Introduce yourself

Introduce yourself as an organizer of your YSI working group, who would like to bring members together at their event. You are welcome to mention that your group has a little bit of funding available to support its members, and that you are interested in organizing something alongside their bigger conference. 

Remember what the funds are for

YSI’s funding is for YSI’s working groups. As much as we love our partner organizations and conferences, we cannot fund them directly. Sometimes, partners may ask you if the funds you have access to can support their speakers or catering costs. That’s not the idea. If it gets confusing, feel free to reach out to YSI Management at ysi@ineteconomics.org

Negotiate practicalities

When you partner with another organization, you bring valuable young blood into their space! The involvement of young scholars is often much appreciated, and makes partner organizations willing to support you in return.

You can ask if they could: 

  • Make a meeting space available for you 
  • Waive registration fees (it is against YSI’s policy to cover them!)
  • Provide (subsidized) accommodation 

Set a good precedent

A fruitful partnership can become an annual tradition that grows year by year. Whatever happens the first year will be more easily replicated the next year. Use your first time to figure out how you would like to work together, knowing that it’ll be the default setting for next year.