Proposed symposium
A Proposed Symposium is designed to be a focused session in which distinguished speakers present on a common theme, issue or question of particular relevance. It would usually consist of a chairperson briefly introducing the topic and providing an introduction to the session. This would usually be followed by at least 3 but no more than 5 individual speakers (ideally from different affiliations or countries), and ending with concluding remarks by a discussant. Every effort should be made to ensure close interaction between the speakers and to provide new and non-overlapping presentations. There should be opportunity for the audience to ask questions to presenters and for an exchange of views. A symposium session will run for 90 minutes.
All submissions will be considered on the basis of the interest of the individual submission and will be ranked according to the following criteria:
- Relevance to the Congress theme;
- Significance of content in terms of applications;
- Relevance of content to audience.
All presenters and discussants are required to register and pay to attend the Congress. The acceptance of a submission does not imply funding of registration, travel arrangements, accommodation or other costs by the Congress Organizers.
A submission that does not adhere to these rules is likely to be rejected.
Below are some general guidelines related to the required formatting and content of the abstract. Carefully prepared abstracts facilitate the review process, as it is easier to judge the quality of presentations that are thoroughly and concisely described.
The symposium summary:
- Title of the symposium (a maximum of 120 characters including spaces);
- List of presenters (including the symposium organizer as first author and discussant if any);
- Abstract (description of what this symposium is about – not more than 150 words)
- Press paragraph (presenting the topic and the speakers, not more than 200 words)
- General summary of the Symposium (not more than 2000 characters, spaces included), introduction, which includes extended background for the set of researches (theoretical framework), objectives and raised questions; brief description of how the presentations will address those issues.
- Speakers’ titles, full names, affiliations, countries, and contact details.
- Abstracts modifications: Only symposium submitting author (symposium organiser) will be able to make changes to individual abstracts (authorship, title, and contents) and modify symposium summary on the personal page before the deadline for abstract submission.
Symposium organizer should initially submit all individual abstracts together with the symposium summary. Later the submitting authors may communicate all necessary changes to the submitting author to upload them on the personal page to adjust the submitted symposium.
- The title should be brief (a maximum of 125 characters including spaces), clearly indicating the contents of the abstract;
- Author/s details: Full name and affiliation, country. Note: there should be not more than 5 authors; the first author is the presenting author.
- Abstract body: Please ensure that your abstract does not exceed 350 words and contains the following information:
- Background: statement of the primary objectives of the study, including theoretical framework and research questions that were tested;
- Methods: should include design, participants (and their number), measures and analysis;
- Findings: a summary of results accompanied by important statistical information/ description of the main findings/ the points to be made;
- Discussion: conclusion or some discussion on implications of the results.
- Keywords are not required.
- Language and writing: All abstracts must be in English. If English is not the authors’ first language, it is recommended that an English native speaker should proofread the abstract; please write the abstract with a word-processing program, check spelling and grammar, proofread carefully, copy and paste it into the form.
- Numbers, references, and abbreviations: Kindly stick to a few references in abstract body. Use Arabic numerals for all numbers. Use standard abbreviations and symbols. Keep abbreviations to a minimum and define each one when it is used for the first time.
- Figures and tables: Do not include any figures or tables in abstracts, and do not submit attachments, slides, or any reference materials with the abstracts.
Notification of acceptance by the Scientific Committee will be emailed to the Symposium organizer and to each presenter. Please note that the Scientific Committee reserves the right to change submissions for proposed symposium to oral or poster presentations.
