Present & Convene

Scientific session proposals are submitted for review and accepted and allocated by the scientific organizing committee. Approved scientific session proposals will be allocated oral, poster, eLightning, or online discussion session types by the scientific organizing committee after the abstract submission process.

The proposal guidelines are provided to help inform your submission. Detailed proposal requirements are included on the proposal submission site.

Please keep these items in mind.

• The scientific organizing committee generally will not consider:
  • Proposals that are celebratory or honorary in nature. Sessions cannot be in tribute to a specific person or contain the name of a scientist in the session title. Names can be used in the description when used in context with scientific results and focused on the person’s contribution to the field overall.
  • Proposals that are primarily advertisements of commercial products and services, or that contain the name of a specific experiment in the title or description. Opportunities to exhibit or sponsor activities at AbSciCon24 will be available soon.
• Conveners may submit multiple proposals, but we ask that you ensure the topics are different and across topics.
• It is not possible to request an oral session. The scientific organizing committee will assign final session formats and not all sessions will receive an oral component, but conveners may propose a poster-only session.
• All first authors, including invited authors, who submit an abstract to a session are subject to the abstract submission fee. The presenter must also pay the meeting registration fee.
• The scientific organizing committee may ask that similar session proposals merge to avoid duplication in the meeting’s scientific program. They may also ask conveners to revise a session proposal description. Following the proposal deadline, the scientific organizing committee will reach out to conveners to make these requests if needed.

Proposals should not include potential invited authors or make special requests.

• If your proposal is accepted, you may invite up to two authors to submit abstracts to your session once abstract submissions open in late October.
• Session conveners may not be the first author or presenting author on an invited abstract in the session they are convening, but:
  • Conveners can submit contributed abstracts to be presented in their own session.
  • Conveners may be invited authors in other sessions.
• Not all approved sessions will receive an oral allocation from the scientific organizing committee, conveners should not promise an oral presentation to invited authors.
• Detailed policies and instructions for inviting authors will be posted in late October.

Before submitting, please:

• Review AGU's Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy.
• Review submitted proposals to ensure your proposed content will not significantly overlap with other sessions.
• Review the details for each proposal type.
• Proofread your proposal.

• If you submitted a proposal, you will be notified of acceptance or rejection in late October.
• After session submissions and again after abstract submissions, the scientific organizing committee reserves the right to:
  • Reject or merge multiple proposals submitted by the same convener(s) on related topics or across sections
  • Move sessions to another topic area
  • Merge proposals on similar topics
  • Request that conveners revise the session title and/or description
  • Notify conveners if sessions need to be merged or have their descriptions revised
• Conveners must be available in October and January to respond to any inquiries from the scientific organizing committee.
• Approved sessions will be open to receive abstract submissions from late October 2023 through 10 January 2024.
  • Conveners are responsible for ensuring that the abstracts submitted to their session are topically appropriate and should work with the scientific organizing committee if an abstract is better suited for another session or is not appropriate for the meeting.
  • Promotional resources for session conveners will be available in mid-October.
• The final decision on your allocated session type (i.e., oral, poster, eLightning, online discussion session) and schedule will be made by the scientific organizing committee.
  • Conveners will be informed of their session type assignments in late January. During this period, conveners can log into the abstract management site to begin abstract reviews and session scheduling (arranging the order of their abstracts).
  • Conveners will be informed of their session’s scheduled date and time when the online meeting program is released in late February.