A presenter speaks to a room of people. A large screen show a slide of a PowerPoint presentation.

Guidance for session organisers

Please read this guidance before circulating your call for papers and submitting your session proposal.

Important note on formats

Hybrid sessions

We have plenty of capacity for online and in-person formats, but will have limited capacity for live hybrid sessions at this year's event. We want to make sure those we host offer a really positive experience for online and in-person presenters and attendees.

Consequently, we will be allocating these on an open, competitive basis, with priority for sessions that make the most of hybrid opportunities and functionality. We will be asking you to make the case for why you would like a hybrid format at the time of the submission of the session and how you will ensure all presenters and attendees online and in-person will get the most out of the session.

This will be assessed against the following criteria:

Clear plan for how to make the most of hybrid capacity, including how you will engage both in-person and online participants and attendees.
Innovative uses of the hybrid format and capacity.
Who you wish to include as session contributors and participants, and how they would benefit from the hybrid format.
Plan for sharing any recorded content after the session.

Asynchronous content

Contributors will be able to upload additional content to presentations in the online programme (such as pre-recorded presentations, posters, papers, slides, and so on), to be viewed before, during, and after the conference. We encourage you to make the most of this capacity and to build this into your session plans.

Conduct at the conference

By submitting a proposal for the conference programme, you agree to abide by the conference code of conduct. Please ensure that your session contributors are also aware of this.

Planning your session

As you plan your proposed session at the conference, we encourage you to think about the kinds of spaces and conversations that you would like to curate, and how you want to engage session attendees in person and/or online.

Find out more about session types and formats.
Apply for Research Group sponsorship for your session.
Think about how to make your session more inclusive, including circulating your call for papers as widely as possible. Please see our guidance on how to organise an inclusive conference, and our information about accessibility at the conference.

Key points to note

All sessions will be reviewed by the AC2025 Conference Planning Committee before being accepted for the conference (please see below under Next steps).
Sessions will be limited to TWO timeslots in the programme. A timeslot is 1 hour 40 minutes. Sessions wishing to request a third timeslot for their session should contact ac2025@rgs.org to discuss ahead of finalising their session submission.
Please remind contributors of the limits on individual contributions when accepting abstracts/contributions for your session.
Sessions do not need to be sponsored by a Society Research Group in order to appear in the programme.
Sessions may be scheduled at any time from 9.00am on Wednesday 27 August and 6.30pm on Friday 29 August. Please see our planned programme structure for more details.
Every effort is made to prevent timetable clashes for individuals in the conference programme and to minimise clashes for sessions sponsored by the same Research Group, or on a similar topic. In some cases, clashes cannot be avoided. All conference participants are asked to check the provisional programme carefully and advise the organisers of any potential problems, and to then also check the final programme for any changes.
Session organisers are asked to be as flexible as possible about scheduling arrangements, which can be requested at the time of submission.
Please encourage your session contributors to let us know about any accessibility requirements via the submission form.
Session organisers are responsible for ensuring that all their contributors register to attend the conference by the early bird deadline of Friday 13 June 2024, so that the session can be confirmed as going ahead for the programme. You can find more information about registration.
Session organisers should ensure that they have sufficient confirmed contributors to allow the session to go ahead if one or two withdraw. For paper sessions, we will consider those with four papers provided there are contingencies for replacing papers should any of the papers be withdrawn.
Successful proposals, including the names and affiliations of session contributors, will be made public via the Society’s website and will be kept on record as part of the Society's historical archive.
Publishers or others proposing a plenary lecture or other high-profile event for the conference programme are encouraged to contact the conference organisers via email at ac2025@rgs.org as soon as possible to discuss this.

Next steps

All submissions will be reviewed by the conference organising committee after submissions close on Friday 7 March. We aim to notify all potential contributors as to whether your submission has been accepted on or around Monday 21 April. Registration for the conference will open at this point, and timetabling will get underway.

We are intending to publish a provisional programme by mid-late May 2025.

Please see the conference timeline for further information.