The “1st International Academic Conference on Why it Matters” will take place as the “Decade of Action” begins the countdown towards 2030, and the global community, including academic institutions, civil society organizations, private sector entities, local and national governments, as well as media outlets, explore ways through which the implementation of the Agenda and its 17 Goals become an intrinsic part of their efforts.

The COVID-19 pandemic that has highlighted the importance of multilateralism and global engagement to address common threats and challenges. Academic institutions are uniquely qualified to bring to the table discussions and approaches that can be incorporated into the action plans in other social sectors.

By focusing on education and approaching academically the subject of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the “1st International Academic Conference on Why it Matters” as part of the “Decade of Action for the Sustainable Development Goals” aims to build on the importance of academia and education as the bedrock of sustainable development and global engagement.

Co-sponsored by the United Nations Department of Global Communications through the Academic Impact Initiative, is the first forum of its kind and will bring to Utah a global conversation so necessary in this divided world. The Conference is an important opportunity to mobilize academic experts and civil society advocates to study the mechanisms of implementation and success of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Conference participants will gather in Utah to be part of a global conversation that will define an inclusive and culturally appropriate international and regional messaging, academic approaches and advocacy strategies, partnerships and governmental accountability frameworks including financing for development.

The purpose of this Conference, rooted in the necessity to academically address the Sustainable Development Goals, is to harness strategies, expertise and resources across the widest spectrum of academic thought to unleash a range of education initiatives that ensure inclusive, safe and equitable quality sustainable development that may serve as a blueprint for higher education institutions, civil society organizations (CSOs), private and public sector to successfully incorporate the 2030 Agenda and the Goals into their work programs.

Attendees at the Conference will finalize an academic agenda to mobilize academic institutions globally, as well as Civil Societies networks and educators, as well as policy makers, businesses and youth, reflecting the aspirations and ambitions of all global citizens in the spirit of leaving no one behind. This agenda will be drafted by a Scientific Committee formed by a group of academicians/students and will be offered for adoption at the closing plenary session. The agenda will be shared widely with academic institutions, civil society and other sectors to serve as a guidance for its incorporation into their programs and initiatives.   As a result of this conference, a peer reviewed conference proceedings will be published both digitally and in print.

We encourage students, professors, researchers, civil society entities, students, amd government agencies researching or implementing  Sustainable Development to submit a proposal for review by 14 January 2022.

For the Conference we invite full and developmental papers, as well as case study presentations in English, Spanish or French. Please check this website for all the details for this conference. All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings and delivered prior and during the Conference.

To make sure that your submission is received and reviewed, please submit as EARLY as possible. By submitting a paper, all authors also agree that at least one author will attend the Conference. All submissions will be subject to peer review organized by the Call for Papers chairs with two referees for each paper. Deadline for reviews is January 15, 2022.

Length: Limit Proposals to 500 words, not including title and authors.

Language: Proposals must be in English, Spanish or French.

Author Identification: Please include your name and institution in your Proposal.

Authors will be invited to send a proposal of the article or conference presentation. All the proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Committee of the WIM Conference and later selected by the editors of the issue, basing on criteria of accuracy in form and contents, consequentiality in the argumentation and inherence to the matter. In case of acceptance of the proposal, the editorial team will be ask the author to send the complete article to be included in the conference proceedings. The article will be submitted to a peer-review process.

Abbreviations should be defined the first time they appear in your text. Example: HEA (Higher Education Area), before being used as an abbreviation only. Please, do not define or use abbreviations in the title.

• Demonstrate how the proposal aligns and supports the conference theme.
• Please avoid complex mathematical formulas. For the symbols ≤ or ≥, type instead <= or >=. 
• Tables, charts or other graphics may not be included in the proposal. 
• A maximum number of 500 words will be reviewed.

Deadline: Deadline for final papersis 1 April 2022

Length: Limit papers to 10000 words, not including title and authors.

Language: Papers must be in English, Spanish or French.

Author Identification: Please remove your name and institution in your paper.

• If your proposal has been accepted, you should submit a Paper. The final paper length should be between 6000 to 10000 words.(including references).
• A paper should contain the description of your study and should be structured in different sections such as: Abstract (250 words max), Key words, Introduction, Methodology, Results, Conclusions, Acknowledgements (if applicable) and References. 
• Please note that title and authors list should be coincident with the accepted Proposal.
• The references should be cited according to the Harvard Bibliography and Citation Style.
• Contributions will only be published in the WIM 2022 conference proceedings if at least one of the authors of the paper is registered before 1 June 2022.

Authors must supply a structured proposal set out under 5 sub-headings as below:

1. Purpose;
2. Design/methodology/approach;
3. Findings if paper is empirical;
4. Research limitations/implications;
5. Originality/value of the paper.

There should be an abstract of less than 250 words in total.

In addition provide up to six keywords which encapsulate the principal topics of the paper and categorize your paper.

Notes or Endnotes should be used only if absolutely necessary and must be identified in the text by consecutive numbers, enclosed in square brackets and listed at the end of the article. Figures, tables and charts should be supplied within the article itself. References to other publications must be in Harvard style and carefully checked for completeness, accuracy and consistency. This is very important in an electronic environment because it enables your readers to exploit the Reference Linking facility on the database and link back to the works you have cited through CrossRef. You should include all author names and initials and give any journal title in full.

– Sending / Reception: The files containing the proposed articles will be submitted throug the [email protected]. email address. One or more members of the Scientific Committee will count the contributions received, and they will communicate to the authors the receipt of the file and the starting of the referee procedure (the names of those members of the editorial board are reported in the Call for papers and they are appointed case by case). For any information the review committee will contact the authors at their email address.

– First step: a preliminary review will be made, based on the general criteria of relevance of the topic, coherence and clearness, language property, grammatical accuracy. At this stage, the editors decide whether the submitted manuscript should be sent to referees or not.

– Second step: If the manuscript will be accepted by editors, expert reviewer (postdocs and researchers) read the manuscript and give their clear opinions.

– Third step: If the second step judgment is good, professors – having expertise on the topic of the call for papers – will give the third assessment. Accepted articles should be published. The editorial board will contact the Authors informing them about the result of the submission (accepted/not accepted) with the synthetic opinion of the reviewers and the date of receipt. Reviewer comments should be constructive. They may allow the author to improve the quality of the manuscript. Reviewers’ identities are not know by the Author of the manuscript. Their evaluation will be send via e-mail.

Accepted articles will be published on the Why It Matters Conference “Proceedings”.

You should cite publications in the text: (Adams, 2006) using the first named author's name or (Adams and Brown, 2006) citing both names, or (Adams et al., 2006), when there are three or more authors.

At the end of the paper a reference list in alphabetical order should be supplied:

• For books: surname, initials, (year), title of book, publisher, place of publication, e.g. Harrow, R. (2005), No Place to Hide, Simon & Schuster, New York, NY.
• For book chapters: surname, initials, (year), "chapter title", editor's surname, initials, title of book, publisher, place of publication, pages, e.g. Calabrese, F.A. (2005), "The early pathways: theory to practice - a continuum", in Stankosky, M. (Ed.), Creating the Discipline of Knowledge Management, Elsevier, New York, NY, pp. 15-20.
• For journals: surname, initials, (year), "title of article", journal name, volume, number, pages, e.g. Capizzi, M.T. and Ferguson, R. (2005), "Loyalty trends for the twenty-first century", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 2, pp. 72-80.
• For electronic sources: if available online the full URL and date of access should be supplied at the end of the reference.

Each submission will be reviewed by at least two members of the Conference Scientific Committee and rated on a scale from one to five, with five being the highest possible score. Oral presentations and posters on completed research will be rated based on methodologic rigor, the significance of the topic and research to primary care, its novelty and innovation and the validity of the results. Posters on research in progress will be judged using the same criteria, minus validity of the results. Workshops and forum will be evaluated based on their relevance to the Why It Matters Conference Committee, attendees, importance to the field, interactivity, innovation and the need to provide a balance and mix of topics to attendees.

Authorship: Authors must give credit through references or notes to the original author of any idea or concept presented in the paper or proposal. This includes direct quotations and paraphrases.

Publication or presentation history: If material in your presentation has been published, presented, or accepted for publication or presentation, this must be disclosed in your paper or proposal.

Conference attendance: If your panel, paper, or interactive display presentation is accepted for the WIM 2022 conference, you have a commitment to register for and attend the conference and perform your assigned role. All chairs and respondents also make this commitment. If extenuating circumstances prevent you from attending, you should find a substitute to perform your duties and notify the program chair and Executive Board contact person.

Self-Plagiarism (or duplicate publications): Self-plagiarism involves an author presenting earlier published material as original and new. Self-plagiarism is often not an issue, but it must be transparent and limited. A critical issue involved in self-plagiarism is the degree to which it is clear whether the author is drawing from earlier manuscripts/research. Covert self-plagiarism occurs when the author is not transparent when drawing from earlier manuscripts or research; this can constitute a serious ethical transgression.

Types of covert self-plagiarism include:

• Covert Duplicate Publication / Presentation – Submitting a paper to a journal or conference which had been previously published in a journal or conference proceedings.
• Covert Redundant Publication – Occurs when some portion of previously published data is used again in a new publication with no indication that the data had been published earlier.
• Covert text recycling – Reusing portions of previously published text in a new publication without a reference to the origin of the earlier published text.
• Covert fragmented publication (salami strategy) – Occurs when a complex study is broken down into two or more components and each component is analyzed and published as a separate paper.