FAQ

• Cancelation policy
• Conference locations
• Zagreb information
• Covid-19 precautions
• Registration instructions for participants (after May 31)
• Why do I have to pay to attend a degrowth conference?
• Payment instructions for accepted speakers
• Payment instructions for participants (before May 31)
• Expert review
• Peer review

Cancelation policy 

Due to infrastructural requirements of large event preparation, the Local Organising Committee would like to inform all registered participants that in a case of cancelation by July 31 2023 we can make a 50% refund of the conference fee. After August 1 2023 no refunds will be offered, as payments for conference goods and services will be made. Thank you for your understanding.

Conference locations

To learn more about conference locations and how to reach them, please check the pdf here.

Zagreb information

For information on Zagreb, including places to stay and eat near the main conference venue, take a look here.

Covid-19 precautions

In May 2023 the Croatian government declared the end of the pandemic in Croatia, in accordance with recommendations from national and international health organizations, and during the conference we will act in accordance with the WHO recommendations. The event itself is considered to be low risk regarding Covid-19, since it is held in a very well ventilated space, and a part of the program will be held outdoors; common gathering space is also planned to be outdoors.

We encourage all participants to follow the WHO recommendations. There will be reminders to these recommendations on-site (to act responsibly regarding the disease; to refrain from attending if feeling sick; to wear masks indoors etc.), there will be tests ready for those who are not feeling well, and organized instructions for medical help on or near site will be provided.

Taking into consideration the immediate Covid-19 situation at the end of the summer, it will be decided whether obligatory masks and testing will be required. 

Registration instructions for participants (after May 31)

Tickets for participants who will not be presenting papers at the conference can be bought until July 15. To buy a ticket please send an e-mail to support@odrast.hr. 

Please note that the afternoon keynote lectures and the rest of afternoon sessions are FREE and open to everyone!

Why do I have to pay to attend a degrowth conference?

Some of you might be surprised to see that there are registration fees to participate in the Zagreb International Degrowth Conference, but this has always been the case with International Degrowth Conferences.

(Please see here for the full history of the International Degrowth Conferences so far.)

And yes, we would love to organize a large, free international event. However, hosting such an international gathering and offering proper spaces with high quality debates and convivial time has a cost in material and labour. We have to rent the facilities, pay for the logistics, equipment and services, pay for the food (which is a traditional requirement of International Degrowth Conferences and a convivial gesture), and pay for the invited guests (keynote speakers’, artists’, performers’ transport and accommodation expenses). Even if most of the degrowth conferences organizers have been and still are volunteers, some essential roles require full time commitment for months which independent organisations cannot pay for without budgeting for coordination or administration tasks. In the case of the Zagreb conference, which is not organized by large institutions or universities, the work of organising involves a lot of unpaid labour. Altogether, in average, a degrowth conference budget with current inflation rates can reach over 200 000 EUR.

As a way to be inclusive, our friends with institutional support pay more than students, activists in financial hardship, artists or unemployed citizens. Global solidarity also requires that participants who travel long distances from parts of the world with generally lower incomes pay less, even coming from academic institutions.

Finally, for a number of years now, some parts of the academic programme have been free and open to all, with no fee. Likewise, Zagreb will offer access to the afternoon academic program on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, as well as the whole day on Saturday, to Zagreb residents and their guests. There is also the accompanying Degrowth Week, which is completely open to the public.

We also welcome volunteers to help with implementing conference proceedings. They do not have to pay fees, but still use the full conference facilities. Priority in volunteering has been given to students who cannot afford the fee and have an accepted presentation at the conference.

Payment instructions for accepted speakers

Once you log in through the link sent to you in an e-mail (using your old ususername and password) you should see the following:

You should scroll down and see Payment information, you need to choose the county using the drop-down menu button and click on the country of your residence

If you want to be charged for solidarity fee then you need to click here:

If you are a student, then you need to click here and upload a photo of proof that you are a student – we require your active student ID.

Once you have filled in all the information, you need to click on the following button and we will be notified that we need to send you an offer upon which you can proceed and pay.

Payment instructions for participants

Please go to https://peer.odrast.hr and click on the link in the text on the bottom (“Don’t have an account? Follow the link here to apply to the conference.”) which will take you to a sign up page where you can register.

You will then get a confirmation email. After confirming your email, you will be able to enter the conference platform and make the payment, following the instructions above.

Expert review

To complete the expert review, you must first log in with your username and password at this link.

Screenshots will serve as a template for you to follow. Some of the information is for the conference organizers and will be highlighted in black. Please do not pay any attention to it.

Once logged in, you will be redirected to the home page of the website. You will have access to a number of tabs. To proceed with the review, please click on the Sessions tab.

This tab lists all the sessions proposed in the framework of the 9th International Degrowth Conference. 4 criteria uniquely determine each session: 

• Title,
• Theme, which is necessarily 1 of the 12 themes of the conference. If you click on Theme, the list of sessions will be automatically sorted by theme. If you place your cursor slightly to the right of Theme, you will see a filter appear (rightmost icon in Figure 2, in the purple box). After clicking on this icon, a list of all 12 topics will be displayed, so that you can select the topics that interest you the most. 
• Session type, which describes the type of presentation offered (Special session, Paper presentation, Non academic session). The same filtering options are available. Click on Session type or on the rightmost icon to start filtering.
• Number of reviews, which simply states the number of peer reviews that have already been done. These sessions are still missing Expert Reviews. 

To choose the session you are going to evaluate (among the over 300 still available to be done that are below the filtering section), you can use 3 filtering criteria: 

• Filtering by keyword: To do this, enter a keyword (it is important to enter only one, otherwise you may not get any results). 
• Filtering by average score attributed to sessions: You must then choose a type of filtering (lower, lower or equal, equal, higher or equal, higher), then the associated score.
• Filtering by category: Tick the boxes corresponding to the categories you are interested in and feel able to evaluate. 

Once you have filled in the various selection criteria that you feel are relevant, click Select to start filtering. If you ever want to change your filters, you can either go back or click Clear for the first 2 criteria and check or uncheck the boxes on the third criterion. 

You now have access to all the sessions that match your criteria. To access its content, click on the title of the session you wish to access.

If you now wish to evaluate the session, please go to the Ratings sub-tab (see Figure 6).

It is then possible to review the chosen project. To review the session, you will need to : 

• Answer 4 questions (Thematic relevance, Clarity of presentation, Originality, Degrowth relevance). Please note that the minimum score is 1 and the maximum score is 5 for each question.
• Please leave a comment as well, in order to refine your thinking and clarify what you think is relevant in the presentation.

Then click on Create Review when you are sure you have completed your assessment. Do this process as many times as required. 

If you encounter problems please write to support@odrast.hr naming the session that you found problematic. Please complete all your reviews before February 19 2023.

Peer review

Please go to the submission platform to log into your personal profile. There you will find a link for Peer Review. Once you have clicked on the link Peer Review, you will be redirected to this page. 

Depending on the number of submissions you have made, you will be allocated a number of sessions to review. The number of sessions you will need to review and those you have already reviewed are indicated below the title 9th International Degrowth Conference.

Below this, each case corresponds to a session that we suggest you review. Each proposal is based on links between the topics you are addressing in your session and those addressed by the person who wrote the proposal. To the right of the 9th International Degrowth Conference, you will find a counter that indicates your completion rate of the review process. The tick on the right hand side of a box indicates that you have already assessed it.

For each session, click on Open for a more detailed description of the proposed session (refer to the sessions in the second row of the example for this part, this is what you will see first). Once you have read the content of the session, return to the previous page.

You now have 2 choices: 

• If you click on the Accept box, it means that you agree to review this session. Please note this selection is irreversible and once you accept to review it, you must also complete reviewing that proposal. 
• If you click on the Skip box, the related session will disappear and you will be offered a new session related to your preferred topics.

When you check the Accept box, you will now have 2 options (refer to the first and third sessions in the first row of the example for this part): 

• Open: this option allows you, as before, to access the detailed content of the session. However, as it is also accessible from the Review button, this button is no longer useful.
• Review: This option allows you to access the detailed content of the session in question, but also to answer the questions asked for the review process. Once you have answered all the questions, you can press the Submit button, located below the questions. 

Please note: Once you have validated your answers to the questions, you will not be able to modify them. Please check that you have answered correctly all the questions before submitting your review.

Peer reviews are averaged between peer and expert reviewers (Scientific Advisory Committee). 

If you really must make an important modification, please send an email to support@odrast.hr. The change will then be made manually. We will not be able to respond to all requests, so please be careful when filling in the questionnaire, so as not to overload our support services. 

Please complete all your reviews before February 19 2023.