Dear Members and Friends of the ITH,
we are writing today to inform you that, with reference to a proposal put forward by the President, the ITH Board has decided, after intense deliberation, to postpone the ITH Conference 2020 by one year to September 2021.
Under the given circumstances, which will likely only slowly change again in a substantial manner, we need to consider that we might not be in the position to successfully of fully successfully hold the 2020 Conference. The organisation of international conferences like those of the ITH is a prolonged and complex process, in organisational, scholarly and financial terms. Therefore, we consider an early decision to postpone as a responsible decision, which can save us from numerous imponderables. Conversely, we consider that such a decision will not have far-reaching problematic consequences for the ITH and its Conferences. A one-year suspension of the Conference, in reaction to an unprecedented and unpredictable crisis, will most likely not do substantial harm to ITH. The representatives of the important long-term and future cooperation partners of the ITH support the decision.
The 56th ITH Conference thus will take place on 23-25 September 2021.
All those who would have taken part in September 2020 in an active role (speakers, participants in the Roundtable and the evening event, ...) will soon receive detailed information on how we will proceed. For inquiries and requests concerning the postponement of the 56th ITH Conference from September 2020 to September 2021 please contact:
Tom Waibel, ITH_Management, tom.waibel@ith.or.at
Charlotte Rönchen, Conference Management, charlotte.roenchen@ith.or.at
Susan Zimmermann, ITH President, zimmerma@ceu.edu
We are looking forward to an exciting future for labour history, and the ITH as an institution, and send our best regards in troubled times:
Susan Zimmermann, President
Marcel van der Linden, Vice-President
David Mayer, Vice-President
Lukas Neissl, General Secretary