Recognizing the Strength of the Global AIS Community as We Look to the Future

Thank you for being a member of the Association for Information Systems (AIS)! At the start of each year, we take the opportunity to reflect on significant accomplishments across the Association during the prior year and to highlight upcoming events. The importance of your intellectual contributions, engagement, and support towards the success of the AIS community is notable. We are delighted to highlight some of these incredible achievements and milestones from 2022:  

• The Association reached another all-time high membership level in November 2022, exceeding 5,000 members worldwide.
  
• The AIS eLibrary reached 11.5 million article downloads from 190 countries by the end of 2022.  On average, every article in the eLibrary is downloaded 199 times and garners more than 427 abstract views.  
  
• With continued uncertainty across the global landscape during 2022 and the demand for inclusive, green, and cost-affordable conferencing options dramatically on the rise, the Association was proud to offer four different conference modalities in the span of 13 months: 
  • A full-hybrid conference for ICIS 2021 in Austin 
  • A 100% virtual conference for PACIS 2022
  • A light-hybrid conference for AMCIS 2022 in Minneapolis 
  • A 100% face-to-face conference for ICIS 2022 in Copenhagen and ECIS 2022 in Timisoara

  This level of agility and flexibility in conference modality is remarkable and could prove to be even more essential as we move forward. At a minimum, it provides an effective avenue for helping to manage risks and provides solutions to ever-changing global conditions.

• AIS launched a first-of-its-kind Entrepreneurial Innovation Fellowship (EIF) program with the generous support of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The EIF program offers a stipend, travel assistance, and mentoring opportunities for Ph.D. students working at the intersection of innovation, entrepreneurship, and information systems. The first cohort of EIF Ph.D. student recipients was announced in September and recognized during ICIS 2022. We will continue to provide updates throughout the year. 
  
• AIS conducted the largest election in the Association’s history during 2022 with seven new Council positions either newly elected or appointed. The Council members began their terms on September 1, 2022, bringing fresh global perspectives to the governing body of the organization and have been enthusiastically welcomed.
• As the Association continues to grow, we are excited to add a new AIS Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion position as a permanent voting member of the AIS Council. The position will be filled starting with the 2023 AIS Elections. 

AIS ended the year 2022 with the most prestigious gathering of information systems scholars and research-oriented practitioners in the world with ICIS 2022 in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Led by Conference Chairs Roman Beck, Stacie Petter, and Tina Blegind Jensen, and Program Chairs Tilo Bohmann, Kai-Lung Hui and Viswanath Venkatesh, this remarkable event nearly exceeded capacity with more than 1600 attendees and guests from 56 countries in attendance. The conference also featured more than 45 ancillary events (workshops, symposiums, SIG meetings, etc.), an outstanding keynote speaker, a spectacular social event, awards lunches, exhibitors, numerous coffee breaks, and much more. We extend our sincere thanks to the entire ICIS 2022 Conference Committee and congratulate the Best Conference Paper award recipients, AIS LEO recipients, AIS Fellow recipients and all this year’s award winners. A complete listing can be found here (https://aisnet.org/news/627306/AIS-Honors-Top-IS-Leadership-and-Research-at-ICIS-2022.htm). 

As a global community, the past three years have been personally and professionally challenging for all of us. AIS continues to remain absolutely committed to supporting the global IS community throughout these challenges and beyond. We encourage all members to continue leveraging the resources for research, teaching, collaboration, webinars, communication, SIGs, chapters, grants, and scholarships that are offered through the Association. With AIS membership levels and eLibrary traffic levels at all-time highs, we are grateful for your continued intellectual contributions, engagement, and support toward making the entire AIS community a success. As we look forward to 2023 with ECIS in Norway, PACIS in China, AMCIS in Panama, and ICIS in India, AIS will continue reaching out across all corners of the global community and collaborating with each of the respective conference committees to help support those conferences using the delivery mode that is determined to be best. Together, the global AIS community can not only survive, but can also thrive during these challenging times.  

Thank you for being a member of AIS and we wish you the happiest, healthiest, and wonderful 2023.

Sincerely,

AIS Presidents, AIS Council, AIS Staff