The conference is supported by several U-M departments, as well as the journal, World Development. It will cover a suite of key themes related to sustainability and development, but broadly focuses on the many global efforts to realize the SDGs and to assess the outcomes of SDG interventions. The conference is an opportunity for us to deepen our efforts to understand the breadth and depth of work on the subject and to facilitate collaborative conversation and action around sustainability and development relationships.

One of the objectives of the conference is also to strengthen World Development itself by helping potential authors gain insights into the editorial review process, and by encouraging potential authors to submit papers to World Development. To this end, we will select the top 10 papers submitted to the conference for expedited review and publication, and another top 25 papers whose full text is submitted to the conference to send out for review (provided submitting author(s) are interested in publishing in World Development).

In addition, in my capacity as Editor-in-Chief of World Development, I am offering a limited number of one-on-one expedited manuscript review sessions. As a way to say thank you for your contributions to the journal, priority will be given to existing World Development reviewers and those who have already prepared manuscripts for submission.

We welcome abstracts for posters, workshops, lightning talks, oral presentations, and full panels. See the webpage, umsustdev.org, for guidelines and other information.

The deadline is July 15, 2018, and we will communicate with all authors of selected abstracts before September 1, when registration will open for the conference and by when we will also provide invitation letters to those whose abstracts are accepted.

We hope very much that you will consider submitting an abstract  and that we will have the opportunity to engage with you in person.

Sincerely,

Arun Agrawal