2025 SAA Research Forum

Call for Participants and Presentations

Society of American Archivists 

2025 SAA Research Forum

hosted by the Committee on Research, Data, and Assessment

July 23 from 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT Register here

July 30 from 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT Register here

Virtual Meetings

MAY 2 DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS FOR THE SAA RESEARCH FORUM 

On behalf of the 2025 Research Forum Committee, we invite you to submit abstracts (of 300 words or fewer) for either 10-minute platform presentations or 5-minute lightning talks. Topics may address research on, or innovations in, any aspect of archives practice or records management in government, corporate, academic, scientific, or other settings.

The 2025 Research Forum will be conducted as two Zoom-based virtual sessions, each four hours long, on July 23 from 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT and July 30, 12:00 – 4:00 pm CT.

The 2025 Research Forum will be made up of 10-minute platform presentations and 5-minute lightning talks, extended from 3 minutes. A limited number of presentations will be accepted to allow for longer presentation times, extended Q&A periods, and opportunities for discussion between attendees. An abstract submission rubric will be used by the Committee to evaluate submissions. The 2025 Research Forum webpage provides additional information about the schedule and links to past Forum proceedings.

We invite presentations on research results that may have emerged since the 2024 Joint Annual Meeting Call for Proposals deadline, as well as reports on research completed within the past three years that are relevant and valuable for discussion as defined by the rubric. On the submission form, please indicate whether you intend a platform presentation or a lightning talk.

The Research Forum Committee and CORDA encourage submissions on a range of topics, which may include:

• Global challenges and their implications for archives and archivists, such as climate change, armed conflicts, environmental disaster, and human rights
• Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (EDISJ) as a core value for archives and archivists;
• Collaborating across domains—archives, libraries, galleries, and museums;
• Repository-level data: how archives measure their output, outcomes, and activities over time;
• Centering users in the design of archival systems for discovery; and/or,
• Building audiences to increase the impact of archives on society.

These themes can be found in the SAA Research and Innovation Roadmap (v1.4).

Abstracts will be evaluated by the 2025 Research Forum Committee convened by Chris Marino (Stanford University) and Emily Lapworth (Kennedy Presidential Library).

Deadline for submission of abstracts: May 2, 2025. You will be notified of the Committee’s decision by June 2, 2025.

Proposals should be submitted here.