Regulations for Virtual workshops 2025-2026

1.    Applications to organise a virtual workshop are welcome. Applications will be reviewed by the IISL’s Meetings Committe and the organisers will be informed of the Committee’s decision as soon as possible after receipt of the application.

2.    Virtual workshops can be held throughout the year except for the month of August. Organisers are advised to apply as early as possible in the calendar year before the proposed date of the virtual workshop.

3.    Applications must include the following:

(i)   the application form;
(ii)    names and full contact details of the organisers, with their professional status, affiliations, etc.; if there is more than one, the primary person for liaison with the Institute should be identified;
(iii)    a list of the provisional participants, with their profesional status and affiliations; they should have been contacted in advance and have agreed to participate; if the application is successful, a final list together with full contact details will be needed. The number of participants will be between 15 and 25;
(iv)    a provisional programme for the virtual workshop, including working titles of presentations or papers. In order to prepare a schedule that provides opportunities for participants from many different timezones to maximize participation in the workshop and allow them to attend as many sessions as possible, we would like to offer you the possibility to organize the sessions of your workshop in the following time slot:

8:00 am-9:00 pm (CET)

If it is necessary, we will extend the ordinary 2 full days, to a more flexible programme (8:00 am–9:00 pm CET) within the same week trying to avoid overlapping of different workshops’ sessions.

4.    Evaluation of proposals. Virtual workshop proposals will be evaluated on:

a)    Quality of the proposal. Applications should clearly explain the contribution of the proposed virtual workshop to socio-legal studies or sociology of law. Track record of publications arising from involvement in previous workshops or conferences (at the IISL or elsewhere) will also be considered;

b)    Spread of participation. Virtual workshops participants should come from a range of geographical locations, including both international and Basque participants. There should also be a spread of participants according to stage of career, such as doctorate students, early career academics, and senior academics. Virtual workshops do not have to be held in English, and a diversity of language is encouraged. Applications should clearly indicate which proposed participants have already made a commitment, in principle, to attend;

c)    Originality. Applications should explain the originality of the proposed virtual workshop. In instances where a similar topic has been the subject of previous workshop, applications should indicate how their treatment of the topic will differ. The IISL particularly welcomes proposals from people who are new to the Institute.

d)    Relevance to the Basque Country. Virtual workshops are welcomed on any topic that will make a significant contribution to socio-legal studies or sociology of law. Topics which are relevant to the Basque Country are also strongly encouraged. The Basque Government has suggested several topics of particular interest. These are: socio-legal problems on housing, juvenile delinquency; impact of legal reform on domestic violence; operation on juvenile courts; cross-border mediation; social integration. Further information concerning these themes is available here: +info

5.    The substantive and intellectual organization of the virtual workshop will be the responsibility of the virtual workshop’s proposers; the IISL will provide organisational support. 

6.    Papers and presentations for the virtual workshop can be made available, for access by participants, on the IISL intranet. As a general rule, a condition of hosting a workshop is that the IISL is entitled to first refusal for either its open access journal Oñati Socio-Legal Series (OSLS), indexed in Web of Science’s ESCI and in Elsevier’s Scopus, or one of its book series, namely Oñati International Series in Law in Society, published in English by Bloomsbury-Hart, or Oñati: Derecho y Sociedad published in Spanish by Dykinson. This criterion may be negotiated in view of the circumstances. Should the workshop organisers have other plans, they are expected to express their will in the moment of submitting their virtual workshop application. Track record of publication from previous workshops is a relevant criterion for workshop selection as well as for making exceptions to the general rule. For further information, see the Workshop Publication Guidelines or refer to Leire Kortabarria IISL Publications officer.

7.    If accepted, the proposer of the virtual workshop will be asked to confirm acceptance. The title and dates of the virtual workshop will then be publicised on the IISL website and social media. The organiser will then be contacted again as follows:

• 4-5 months prior to the date of the virtual workshop, to supply the list of participants with full contact details, and a revised programme;
• 4-5 months prior to the date of the virtual workshop the IISL will send a letter of invitation to participants, with a pre-registration and final registration form;
• 6 weeks before the virtual workshop date, the organiser should send the final programme to the IISL
• 1 month prior the virtual workshop date, final registration forms must be received from participants;
• 2 weeks prior the virtual workshop date, all participants will receive the final programme. This information will be posted on the IISL website.

8.    A workshop fee shall be paid by all participants including the organizers. For 2024-2025 virtual workshops it will be as follows:

• €100 non-members of the RCSL, professionals,
• €80 members of the RCSL, professionals,
• €40 for students, unemployed or retired people.

Note: All participants, including organizers, co-presenters, and participants regardless of duration or specific details of their participation are subject to the payment of the above mentioned rates.

The  fee covers the following services:

• Preparation of the invitations in coordination with the chairs of the workshop;
• Sending the invitations to the participants;
• Preparation of the list of answers including the title and abstracts;
• Workshop Programme, including speakers' name, papers' title, abstracts and sessions outline;
• Gathering the papers that will be presented in the workshop;
• Maintaining the intranet and uploading the papers to be presented;
• Informing the participants how to use the IISL virtual platform;
• External technical support during the 2 days of the workshop;
• Access to book proposal submission to any of our two book series, namely Oñati International Series in Law and Society (Bloomsbury-Hart, in English) or Oñati: Derecho y Sociedad (Dykinson, in Spanish);
• Fast track submission of special-issue proposal to our Gold Open Access electronic journal Oñati Socio-Legal Series (Web of Science's ESCI and Elsevier’s Scopus) without APCs;
• Constant email contact with the participants and problem solving in coordination with workshop chairs;
• IISL's digital certificates of your Workshop chairing/participation/attendance;
• Diffusion through IISL social networks and data base.

PLEASE NOTE: A virtual workshop will be cancelled if there are less than 15 participants.

The IISL reserves the right to cancel the virtual workshop for reasons of force majeure. If this is the case, the IISL will inform about its decision as soon as possible.