Guidance for session organisers

The draft programme has now been published!

Use the Schedule tab to browse and search for session information. To check the details of your own paper, please use the Presentations tab and search functionality. Please see our Programme page for more information. 

Planning your attendance at the conference? Please see our guidance for attending in-person, and attending online. You can now register for the conference.

If you have any questions, please contact ac2023@rgs.org.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Further information:

• Important note on formats

• Our code of conduct at the conference

• Key points to note

Important note on formats

Hybrid sessions

We have plenty of capacity for online and in-person formats, but will have very limited capacity for live hybrid sessions at this year's event. In total we expect to have only 40-50 hybrid session timeslots (out of an expected 350-400 total sessions).

Consequently, we will be allocating these on an open, competitive basis, with priority for innovative sessions that make the most of hybrid opportunities and functionality. We asked session organisers to make the case for why they require a hybrid format at the time of the submission of the session, assessed against the following criteria:

1. Clear plan for how to make the most of hybrid capacity, including how you will engage both in-person and online participants and attendees

2. Innovative uses of the hybrid format and capacity

3. Who you wish to include as session contributors and participants, and how they would benefit from the hybrid format

4. Plan for sharing any recorded content after the session

Asynchronous content

This year you and your presenters 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. 

Hubs at the conference

In addition to our planned distributed Chair's plenary on Wednesday 30 August, we are very keen to work with those who might be interested in hosting a regional hub for the conference. Please see our guidance on hubs for more information. 

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. 

Key points to note

• All sessions will be reviewed by the AC2023 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 ac2023@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 09.00 on Wednesday 30 August and 18.00 on Friday 1 September. 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.

• Session organisers are responsible for ensuring that all their contributors register to attend the conference by the early bird deadline of Friday 16 June 2023, so that the session can be confirmed as going ahead for the programme. More information about registration is available here.

• 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 (ac2023@rgs.org) as soon as possible to discuss this.