Why does APPAM hold the Fall Conferences in Washington, DC every other year?
Beginning in 1985, APPAM has held every conference in an odd-numbered year in Washington, DC. This pattern emerged because of the interest of practitioners in the Washington area (and especially federal government officials) in the research presented at the Fall Conference. The conferences held in Washington, DC in recent years have been strongly attended by non-academics. In 2003, APPAM surveyed several leadership groups and the individual membership regarding whether to continue the every-other-year pattern in Washington, DC, and found that all were in support of that arrangement. APPAM essentially holds two different types of research conferences — those in DC have 200 to 300 more attendees and are much more diverse in terms of non-academic participation, and those outside of DC connect the APPAM community to other areas of the U.S. and tend to be more academic in attendance.
