Call for Proposals
The deadline to submit a session or town hall proposal is 28 May 2025, 23:59 EDT/03:59 UTC.
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Session Proposals

Session proposals are reviewed, accepted, and allocated formats by the Ocean Sciences Meeting Program Committee. These proposal guidelines are provided to help inform your submission.

Steps to Submit Your Proposal (April-May)

Proposals are reviewed, accepted, and assigned format(s) by the Ocean Sciences Meeting Program Committee.

Proposal Deadline: Proposals must be submitted via the session proposal site by 23:59 EDT/03:59 UTC on 28 May 2025.

  • Title and Description: Session proposals must include an informative title (20-180 characters), accompanied by a concise definition of the scientific topic and a description of why the topic is relevant and timely (limit 200 words). Sessions should be designed to have a broad appeal and to engage multi-national participation. The program committee will not approve sessions that are too narrowly focused.
  • Chair Roles: Each proposal must identify a primary chair to serve as the point of contact, and at least one additional co-chair, with a limit of four session chairs total. Individuals may serve as primary chair on only one session proposal. In addition, primary chairs can only be listed as a co-chair on two additional session proposals.
    • All session chairs listed on session proposals must consent to being named as part of the proposal at the time of submission.
    • Session chairs should try to incorporate diverse voices among their cadre of co-chairs and session presenters. When we think about these diverse voices, we think not only about race, geographic region, ethnicity, and gender but also opinion, age, and scientific discipline. Additionally, to foster and strengthen the next generation of marine scientists, we encourage submissions by early career scientists and students and for session chairs to include early career scientists or students among their co-chairs and session moderators.
    • At least one of the session chairs must be available between 3-25 June for the session proposal evaluation period to approve merges and/or changes in content. In addition, one of the session chairs of accepted sessions will need to be available between 8-15 September to finalize scheduling of the abstracts within their sessions.
  • Topic Area: Session chairs will select a primary topic area as well as up to three other topic areas that are relevant to the submission. Topic areas are simply ways of organizing session proposal submissions for the program committee and helping meeting attendees efficiently plan their time. Session chairs will also be asked to select descriptive keywords from a pre-defined list of index terms that best describes the session. These keywords are used as a tool for authors to facilitate searches during abstract submission and in the final online program.
  • Student Presentation Evaluation: Session chairs must agree to be responsible for coordinating the evaluation of all student presentations (oral, eLightning, and poster) in their session. One session co-chair must be identified during the scheduling process to serve as the point of contact and must coordinate the evaluation process.
  • Within the proposal submission form, session chairs should indicate their preference to be considered for any session format (oral, eLightning, and/or poster) or to be considered for a poster-only session. Oral sessions cannot be specifically requested, and session chairs must not promise oral presentations to any potential authors. The program committee will assign final formats after the abstract submission deadline, and not all sessions will include an oral component.
    • Once session format assignments are finalized by the program committee, session chairs will assign poster and (if any) oral and eLightning presentations.
    • Because of the large number of abstract submissions expected, we are encouraging scientific content to be presented in poster form as much as possible. To that end, we strongly encourage nominations for poster-only sessions. Posters will be displayed for the entire week of the meeting to maximize viewing opportunities, and they will be scheduled for one two-hour session on one day of the meeting, during which the poster presenter needs to be available to discuss their work.
    • View information on the session formats.
  • Celebratory or honorary sessions will not be considered. Sessions cannot be in tribute to a specific person or contain the name of a scientist in the session title or description. Sessions primarily advertising commercial products, services, or experiments will be declined. Sponsorship and exhibition opportunities will be available separately. Town halls provide a suitable alternative venue for these sessions, if so desired.
  • There is no fee to submit a session proposal. However, all first authors of abstracts must pay the abstract submission fee. All presenting authors and session moderators must pay the meeting registration fee. Membership with AGU, ASLO, or TOS is encouraged, but is not required to submit a session proposal or abstract to the meeting.
  • Session chairs should understand that the program committee will merge sessions if multiple sessions are submitted on similar topics. In addition, the program committee may request modification in the title or description of the session or move it to a more appropriate topic area than the one to which it was submitted. The program committee will work with session chairs throughout the merging process after all session proposals have been submitted.
  • Session proposals will be available for public viewing throughout the proposal submission period, and potential chairs are asked to carefully examine the list of previously submitted session proposals to make sure their proposed session does not overlap significantly with other previously submitted sessions.

Steps to Organize Your Session (June-September)

Accepted proposals will be open for abstract submissions beginning in July and will be assigned oral, poster, or eLightning session types after the abstract submission deadline in August.

  • June: Chairs are notified of mergers or description revisions by the program committee. Proposals may be rejected or merged if submitted on related topics or may be transferred to a more suitable topic area. Chairs must be available to address inquiries from the program committee during this time.
  • Early July: Chairs are notified if their sessions are accepted and open for abstract submissions.
  • Late August to Early September: The program committee allocates session formats following the abstract deadline of 20 August. Any final necessary session merges are processed by the program committee. Chairs must be available to address inquiries from the program committee during this time.
  • July to August: Prior to the deadline of 20 August, chairs should promote their session to potential authors and monitor the abstracts being submitted to their session using the online abstract viewer. Chairs should alert OSM staff if there are abstracts in their session that are not topically relevant.
  • Early September: The program committee will assign final session formats (oral, poster, eLightning, or a combination).
  • Mid-September: Chairs will be notified of their session format allocations. Chairs will have approximately one week from 8-15 September to thoroughly review and accept abstracts within allocated sessions, ensure submitted abstracts align with the session’s theme, arrange session schedules, and designate moderators and Student Presentation Evaluation Program (SPEP) liaisons. Detailed scheduling instructions will be provided. Not all sessions will receive an oral session assignment and some sessions will only receive poster and/or eLightning assignments.
  • Mid-September: Program committee meets to finalize session dates and times.

Program Publication and Beyond (October-February)

  • Mid-October: Authors are notified of abstract acceptance, format, and presentation timing. Session moderators are notified of session timing.
  • Mid-October to February: After program publication, withdrawn oral and eLightning presentations can be replaced by a presenter in the associated poster session, with approved poster presenter’s consent.
  • October: Detailed moderator guidelines on how to facilitate a session will be made available.

Marketing Tools

Tips for Promotion:

  • Use OSM26 social media templates to promote your session and encourage abstract submissions.
  • Post session details on professional networking sites like LinkedIn.