We are delighted to share that the 2021 NSF/CEME Decentralization conference, which had to be postponed from 2020 due to COVID-19, will take place virtually on April 15-17 this year! This conference series is funded by the National Science Foundation and is administered through the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). This is the 50th anniversary of the Decentralization conference - the first Decentralization Conference was held at UC Berkeley in 1971.

The goal of this year's conference is to apply and extend mechanism design to the practical needs of institutions that serve vulnerable populations. These populations pose conceptual and technical challenges for the designer due to the high stakes decision making environments, complex constraints on agents’ action space, and the cumulative effects of disadvantaged participation in previous mechanisms. We are excited to have Tuomas Sandholm (Carnegie Mellon University) and M. Utku Unver (Boston College) as keynote speakers. Carissa Slotterback (GSPIA Dean, University of Pittsburgh) and Chris Shannon (UC Berkeley) will give introductory remarks.

Talks (including discussions) are 30-45 minutes and spans general mechanism design theory as well as topics such as matching and assignment problems in foster care, refugee resettlement, low-income housing, affirmative action, and criminal justice. Each module will be followed by an open 20-30 minute chat between presenters, audience and discussants. Module B and C will include academic-practitioner conversations.