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Hybrid IMC 2022 Seeks to Offer Best of Both Worlds 

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As plans advance, we wanted to update you with more details of what we have to look forward to for IMC 2022 which will take place both on-campus here at the University of Leeds and online between Monday 4 and Friday 7 July 2022. 

Delegates gather on the precinct in the sun during IMC 2019

The hybrid format of the event will enable delegates attending here in Leeds and remotely from around the world to share their presentations and discuss the latest from across the field of medieval studies. We will again be utilising Pathable, whose virtual platform enabled over 2,000 colleagues to take part in IMC 2021 without even leaving their houses! 

Feedback from last year was overwhelmingly positive, with delegates particularly appreciating the ability to reach out and connect directly with speakers after their presentations were over with the platform’s chat, messaging, and networking functions. These features will all return for 2022, and the platform will also be available for mobile via the Apple and Google app stores, enabling delegates on-campus and elsewhere to connect seamlessly. 

The recording of sessions in 2021 proved immensely popular. This was reflected in responses to our feedback survey, with delegates particularly valuing ‘the ability to catch recorded papers later’ to ‘watch on my own schedule’ and see ‘interesting talks which I would otherwise have missed’.  

Recordings have many benefits for speakers and attendees, including extending the networking and social opportunities beyond the usual four or five days. We hope this will also be helpful for colleagues with caring responsibilities, health issues, or energy limitations that may make engaging with the dense IMC programme more difficult. 

For IMC 2022, we anticipate that the vast majority of academic sessions will be recorded. Recordings will be made available on the virtual platform until 31 August 2022. Sessions where all speakers are participating remotely will run very similarly to last year.  

However, for the vast majority of sessions where all or most of the speakers are attending in-person, we will be asking speakers to speak from the podium or from a clearly demarcated area. This will ensure that recordings are high quality, that speakers can be seen clearly by those at home. So that audience members can lip read effectively, we ask that you pay attention to the camera position when presenting, and do not turn away or walk away from the podium.

As previously communicated, we will be utilising in-room technology wherever possible to ensure a stable connection for virtual attendees. This means that in-person speakers should use the in-room PCs where possible. We ask that presenters share their presentations from the podium PCs and avoid bringing their own devices to present. Therefore, we recommend all speakers either save their slides to the cloud and download them at the start of their talk, or email their files to themselves in advance, or use a USB memory stick to access their presentations. A reminder about this will be included in communications with all speakers and moderators closer to the IMC.

If you need to use specialist software or other tools not available on a standard internet-connected PC, please get in touch as soon as possible so that we can find a suitable space to facilitate this. 

If, for whatever reason, you do not want your paper to be recorded, please let us know by completing our Recording Opt Out Form by Friday 06 May 2022. Where any one speaker opts out of recording, the entire session will be omitted from the recording schedule. Any non-recorded session will be marked as such on its Agenda session page. 

Information about recordings, as well as general IMC 2022 timings, can be found on the Session Timing & Recording page of our website