Note: This article was submitted to CIES Perspectives on January 3, 2019. Although verbally accepted for the Winter 2019 issue, it ultimately did not appear in the double issue (Fall 2018/Winter 2019) that was published on March 1. It remains unknown why the editors of the CIES newsletter did not publish my piece. I have decided to post my piece here in hopes of starting (or continuing, for many members) a conversation about the privatization of CIES.

The CIES 2019 conference in San Francisco is less than two months away. As members begin finalizing their presentations, registering for the conference, and booking flights and accommodation, the leadership of our Society is trying to generate new sources of revenue. 

Take the recently published Partnership Prospectus:Want to sponsor the conference keynote address by Jeffrey Sachs, which will be held not in the hotel but in the legendary 892-seat Herbst Theater? Sponsorship will cost over $10,000. If that’s too much, how about a PowerZone charging station where conferees can plug-in between sessions? That goes for $5,000.  For only $3,000, you can have your logo emblazoned on a “highly-visible, on-site” TV screen where Twitter posts using the appropriate hashtag automatically scroll. This is supposedly for those who forget to visit the PowerZone but don’t want to miss a single Tweet. Sponsorship of a Running Route Map goes for $1,000 while a single exhibit table runs the bargain rate of $800. Want to purchase something not on the list? Rest assured: custom sponsorship packages are available.  

You may be wondering to whom these questions are addressed. The answer is not CIES members but Sustaining Partners, a new category inside the Society to denote external organizations and institutions that want to sponsor anything – even things one likely did not know existed or were needed at an academic conference (Running Route Maps?) – associated with CIES 2019. 

Welcome to the dystopian future of CIES, where the search for profit trumps academic association.