The Future of Field Work: The Promise and Perils of Research in the Twenty-First Century

Image credits: The Murundu, a conspicuous termite earthmound structure of the Brazilian Savanna (Cerrado). Photo courtesy of Yuri Silva de Souza (left), Virunga mountain gorillas in Volcanoes National Park, Rwanda. Photo courtesy of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund (center), Diving in the Maldives (right).
Call for Papers

In 2005 the American Philosophical Society launched the Lewis and Clark Fund for Exploration and Field Research. The brainchild of APS President Baruch Blumberg, the fund was created to support exploratory field studies for the collection of specimens and data and to provide the imaginative stimulus that accompanies direct observation. Since its inception, the program has been doggedly interdisciplinary and has supported over 900 projects on all seven continents in a wide-range of fields, such as archaeology, anthropology, biology, ecology, geography, geology, linguistics, paleontology, and population genetics, among others. 

Call for Papers

Submit a proposal

To mark the twentieth anniversary of this program, the American Philosophical Society will hold an international symposium that explores the current state of field work and its possible future directions. Inspired by the interdisciplinary nature of the fund, the Society welcomes proposals for presentations from researchers in all fields who have conducted field work, broadly defined, with the hope that cross-disciplinary perspectives on the challenges and opportunities researchers face in the field may prove generative. The Society is especially interested in the ways changes in technology, policy, politics, ethics, and funding are affecting the collection, organization, analysis, and presentation of field-based data. The Society also hopes to explore new practices, approaches, and norms when conducting such work, such as community-based projects and the use of randomized field experiments.

To apply, please submit an abstract of your presentation, up to 500 words, and a CV. The Society is not accepting panel proposals, only single presentations. We encourage presenters who want to explore broad trends, issues, and opportunities researchers face today along with case studies of real-world experiences in the field that may provide insight into the changing nature of such research and its future. We would also like to explore the contribution of APS-funded research to the advancement of the APS mission of “promoting useful knowledge.”

The conference will be held October 23–24, 2025, at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. The conference organizers intend to have the event be conversation based and to have the audience participate as much as the presenters. To facilitate dialogue, the bulk of each session will be dedicated to a moderated panel discussion that will more fully explore the issues raised by the presenters. Accepted presenters will be expected to share pre-circulated papers with registered conference attendees, both in person and remote via Zoom, in advance. Each successful applicant will also have an opportunity to make a brief in-person presentation.  The program committee aims to pair accepted proposals topically.

In addition to the panel sessions, ample time will be allowed for networking and informal exchanges. Moreover, the Society plans to publish the proceedings of the conference, and presenters will have an opportunity to submit their work for consideration in a thematic issue of the Society’s peer-reviewed journal, Transactions, the oldest scholarly publication in North America.

Abstracts may be submitted here by December 6. Decisions will be communicated no later than February 15, 2025. Full papers, 12 to 15 pages in length, will be due by September 2, 2025.

Questions? Please contact Linda Musumeci, Director of Grants and Fellowships, at [email protected] or 215-440-3429.