Presentation guidelines:
- Keynote addresses are 45-minutes long (40 minutes for presenting and 5 for questions)
- Standard oral presentations are 15 minutes long (12 minutes for presenting and 3 minutes of questions)
- Lightning talks are 5 minutes long. Q/As will take place after the talks, during the breaks.
Technical guidelines:
- In-person talks must be in MS PowerPoint (.ppt or .pptx) or PDF format prepared in landscape orientation with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
- The presentations should be brought to the room on a USB stick before your presentation session (in the morning or during the lunch break).
- If your presentation contains videos or other multimedia, please include them in a folder with your presentation. We recommend that you test playing these videos with the staff during the break before your session.
- Virtual talks must be pre-recorded as a video with audible audio (MP4 format). These must be sent in by 24 July 2025. If the file is too large to fit in an email, then be sure to send a link to Dropbox, Transfer Link etc.
- Keynotes and standard oral talks: Q/As will be live-streamed. Please be online in our zoom webinar at the end of your talk to answer questions.
- Lightning talks: Please include a final slide with your email or any other way you want to be contacted to answer questions from the audience after your talk has been streamed.
- File names should include the time you are starting and your last name (1015_Smith) The program will be available soon.
Posters guidelines:
- Must be A0 (84.1 x 118.9 cm, 33.1 x 46.8 in) and oriented vertically (portrait).
- Must be set up on Monday (28th of July), during the registration/morning coffee break.
More information:
- Tips for making oral presentation slides more inclusive:
- The font size used in the slides should be legible from a distance, we recommend using font size of at least 24 for the body text and larger for headings
- High contrast and distinguishable colours should be used for text and graphics (e.g., black on white is preferable over dark blue over light blue)
- You can easily check whether your slides have good colour contrast by viewing them in grayscale (Select Start > Settings > Accessibility > Colour filters. Turn on the Colour filter switch, and then select Grayscale. Visually scan each slide in your presentation for instances of color-coding)
- Within Microsoft PowerPoint you can also use the Accessibility Checker which will automatically alert you to areas of the presentation which can be improved (more information here)
- Use simple, easily readable fonts, avoid ornamental fonts
- Graphics and videos without narration should be described by the speaker, if possible/applicable provide closed captions for embedded videos, if playing a video via YouTube please enable closed captions
- Do not use colour alone to distinguish between categories in graphics, also use different symbols (e.g., in scatterplots) or patterns (e.g., in bar plots)
- Technical terms and jargon should be defined or explained for clarity.
- Tips for giving an effective lightning talk:
- Keep everything brief, on point and be clear about your science – just the goals, the basic approach, the key findings/conclusion.
- Convey your excitement about the science – this can be very engaging for the audience and you passion could spark further conversation.
- Limit number of slides to around 1 per minute and try not to include too much text. You don’t need to go into too much detail and try to avoid presenting data. Visuals are a good way to engage the audience but try to avoid videos and animations.
- Leave people hanging at the end to help ensure engagement after the talk, and let the audience know where to find you if they have questions.
- Stick to the time limit, so you don’t get cut off early.
- Even though it is a short talk, practicing in advance is still important. To use the time efficiently, practicing can help illuminate “filler words” and long pauses.
- More ideas: Lightning talks: science in 5 minutes or less
For more information: How to give a great scientific talk
- Tips for making your poster more inclusive:
- The poster should be readable from distance of at least 1 m / 3 feet, we recommend using font sizes as presented in the example below [note that the example is a landscape poster, however we only accept portrait (vertical) posters]:
- High contrast and distinguishable colours should be used for text and graphics (e.g., black on white is preferable over dark blue over light blue)
- You can easily check whether your poster has good colour contrast by viewing it in grayscale (Select Start > Settings > Accessibility > Color filters. Turn on the Color filter switch, and then select Grayscale. Visually scan each slide in your presentation for instances of color-coding)
- Use simple, easily readable fonts, avoid ornamental fonts
- More ideas for poster design can be found here
All talks will be streamed live and recorded. The recordings will only be available for the participants of the conference and will only be accessible for the duration of the conference. In case you would not like your slides or posters to be photographed, please mark them clearly with the "No Photo" icon (example below).
