The secretariat of the International Congress of Historical Sciences (commonly known by its French acronym as CISH) has begun to gear up for the XXII International Congress, scheduled to be held in August 2015 in Jinan, China. All the members of the CISH (national committees, affiliated international organizations, and internal commissions) are being invited to submit to the secretariat of the CISH their proposals for themes to structure the program for the congress (which is held every five years).

The AHA, as the CISH national committee for the United States, will conduct its liaison work through the Association's Committee for International Historical Activities (CIHA). The CIHA will soon publish its call for proposals from those seeking to participate in the 2015 congress. The AHA will forward selected proposals to the CISH secretariat where the final selections will be made.

As Robert Frank, the secretary general of CISH indicated in a recent communication, the "format of communications remains the same today, in conformity with the resolutions of the General Assembly: major themes, specialized themes, joint sessions, round tables and special sessions." Details of these themes and roundtable topics as implemented for the 2010 congress, which was held in Amsterdam, can be seen in the call for proposals issued by the CIHA in October 2007.

As before, the CISH secretary general expects the proposals for the 2015 congress to be "sufficiently varied and innovative, that they deal if possible with several regions of the world and, especially for the major themes, that they include all the historical time periods." He added that CISH tries to maintain "a balance between men and women, between historical specialties and time periods, as well as between countries and between continents."

AHA members interested in taking part in the XXII CISH are requested to check the Association's web site and look out for an announcement in the November issue of Perspectives on History.