Preparing your abstract for the EARMA Conference

Please read this guide carefully; it will help both you, the proposer and us, the Programme Committee make our Conference a memorable event for our participants. You can submit your abstract by the deadline of September 15, 2023.

You can submit your proposal(s) to the Programme Committee through the dedicated online submission portal. We look forward to receiving them and maintaining the high standards of previous conferences by exploring new ideas and directions.

Who can submit?

Anybody can make a submission provided that the presentation topics are of interest to the extended Research Manager and Administration (RMA) community. The work that RMAs do varies widely from place to place; universities, companies, funders, health services, agricultural, engineering centres, etc., all host many different roles that encompass Research Management and Administration. While we welcome submissions from wherever they come, we particularly welcome those who have never or rarely presented at our conference before.

You do not need to be a member of EARMA to make a submission. Submission is open to anybody with an interest in the general field of RMA.

A few things to note first;

●          We want to see as many presenters from as many diverse backgrounds as possible at our conference. Therefore, we will not accept more than 2 submissions from any single author. We hope you understand.

●          The Programme Committee wants to include your suggestion so, please, fill up the form as much as possible with as much detail as you can squeeze in. Remember, writing shorter is much harder than writing longer, so plan your submission.

●          So we can make proper provision for your presentation, please include the names of all your authors/co-presenters either in the abstract or, for non-presenting authors, in the box for non-presenting authors.

●          Each session slot at the Conference is 60 minutes long. However, each session slot may contain a variety of formats (for example, 4 15-minute discussion tables, ~8 Pecha Kucha presentations). There are very few single 60-minute presentations at Conference. So plan something shorter, adaptable and more impactful.

●          Please complete the submission form as fully as possible; we cannot go back and ask you for more details. Mandatory fields are indicated by an asterisk (*).

●          Please also read the Speaker & Topic Terms and Conditions for abstracts and speakers prior to submitting your proposal.

The Submission Process

In the following, you will find advice for each page of the abstract submission process:

Formats

There are 5 different formats at Conference. You will start by choosing your preferred format. The alternative formats will be asked later. 

The five formats are;

• Oral 60 mins (including panels)
• Oral 30 mins
• Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables
• Pecha Kucha (6 minutes and 40 seconds)
• Poster (on exhibition at various times and places during the conference)

Please read the session format descriptions in Annex 1 for more details. In the submission system, you will need to add the following information (* for required fields):

Details

You need to provide some additional details about the nature of your submission

• *A Short title. This will appear in the programme so shortness means clarity. Try to encapsulate your presentation in the title. 
• A Subtitle. This is not mandatory but is recommended, it allows you to provide a bit more definition to your presentation. For programme clarity, shorter is better. 
• *A Short introduction: Provide a short introduction to your presentation, usually enough so that the participants can get an idea of what the presentation will be about.
• *A Category: Please choose the most relevant one:
  • Case Study: Describes an initiative, action, project the objectives, the outcomes, impacts and lessons
  • Theoretical: Room for big thoughts, when you have time to think about the job, what do you think about.
  • Good Practice: Describes something that worked well to the benefit of researchers, and other ecosystem actors
  • New Initiative: Have you tried something new and innovative in your office? Would you like to share it? Then this is the category for you.
  • Other: Anything else
• *A Topic: The topics are a broad guide. The Programme Committee uses them to help with programme organisation, and we reserve the right to adjust topics where we feel it would best serve the needs of the programme.
  • Operations and Planning (includes things like policy, strategy, evaluation, foresight, organising and delivering support services, international collaborations at the institutional level, etc.)
  • Open Science (Open Science, Responsible Research and Innovation (Ethics, EDI, Citizen Science, etc.)
  • Collaboration and Strategic Alliances (European Universities Initiative and other kinds of strategic alliances Partnerships of Parity, Science Diplomacy building, best practices in building all sorts of Alliances, shared research, education and innovation agendas, etc. We would love to hear how different alliances affect the wider RMA community.)
  • Professional and Career Development (All aspects of professional and career development and Professional Recognition. Cardera, RM Roadmap and similar national and international initiatives, etc.)
  • Research Cycle Support Services (Pre-Award) (All aspects of preparing researchers to make bids, preparing the bids including consortia. We would particularly like to hear from funders and evaluators here.)
  • Research Cycle Support Services (Post-Award) (All aspects of delivering a successful research project. Including project management, reporting, resource management, contracts, etc. We would particularly like to hear from funders and evaluators here.)
  • Research Cycle Support Services (Transversal) (Those things that affect the entire research support service. Including resource planning allocation and use, working with stakeholders, working with risk, knowledge and innovation management, IP management, impact culture, planning and management at all levels, project to institution, etc.  We would particularly like to hear from funders and evaluators here.)
  • IT Systems and tools supporting RMA now and in the future (including the impact of AI on the role of RMAs and research and Innovation services, cRISs, repositories green and diamond publishing, integrations)
  • Leadership (What do you think senior RMA and institutional leaders need to know in their roles, CoARA and the organisation of research, where are Europe and global funders going, building an SDG+ve culture around research, etc.)

Alternative Formats

This is your chance to select an alternative format for your presentation in the event that your 1st choice is unavailable. Please remember that single 60-minute presentations are very rare at Conference. We don’t want you to be disappointed so think about alternative formats when you are submitting.

Level of Experience

We want all Conference participants to be able to find programme content that is relevant to them, both in what they do and in their level of experience. The Programme Committee tries to map content to (subjectively determined) levels of experience. You know the level of your presentation best and we appreciate your advice. 

• "New to Topic" (no prior knowledge required)
• "Intermediate" (knowledge development)
• "Experienced only" (requiring considerable amount of previous knowledge)

Some Additional Information

There are some additional pieces of information we need to process your submission

• *Author permission: Tick a box if you have approval from all authors.
• *Additional considerations: The Programme Committee is very keen that your presentation reaches the widest audience to this end; EARMA makes some additional dissemination routes available. Would you like your abstract to additionally be considered for a stand-alone digital or in-person EARMA event? 

o   Digital event

o   In-person event

o   Both

o   Neither

Depending on your choice, EARMA will be in contact. This will not affect your consideration for this conference.

There are some other additional dissemination possibilities that you can avail of.

• The EARMA newsletter: Tick this box if EARMA may approach you regarding a feature of your submission in its newsletter.
• JoRMA publication: Tick this box if EARMA may approach you regarding a feature of your submission in a JoRMA publication.
• *Time allocated: Ticking this box confirms that you acknowledge that, if your presentation is selected, you must submit the session presentation in a timely manner once requested by the organisers. Timely submission reduces the risk of ‘technical errors’ and things ‘going wrong’ on the night. The organisers reserve the right to replace presentations where they are not submitted in time. 
• Video recordings: Tick this box if you give your permission for your session to be recorded and published on the EARMA website as part of the video library. Not all sessions will be recorded.
• Presentations: Tick this box if you agree that your presentation may be shared as a ‘pdf’ on the EARMA website after the conference. If you wish to have an adapted version of your presentation shared, you will ensure to provide EARMA with that version by the last day of the conference.
• Commercial Interest: Tick this box if you are submitting this abstract on behalf of a commercial enterprise.
• *GDPR: Please tick this box to confirm that you agree with EARMA’s terms and conditions.

Page: Content

• *Abstract: A short descriptive piece explaining your presentation and your format choice for a non-expert audience (500 words). Please include take away messages in the abstract (learning outcomes).
• Comments for Reviewers: This is the place to provide additional information about your submission (300 words). For example you may like to justify the reason for your choice of format (i.e. 15 min discussion table etc.).

Page: Authors

By default, the submitting author is the main contact for any communications about the abstract. If you want to change this please contact earma@earma.org. Please note that lack of author information or any other information crucial to the evaluation may lead to rejection.

• Presenting co-authors: You will be able to list up to five authors for standard presentations, 1 or 2 presenters is the usual case. If you suggest a panel discussion, you can nominate 3 to 5 panel members. You can type the author name and select from the list or add other names. Submit the names of all people coming to present (presenting co-authors) along with the abstract. 
• Non-presenting co-authors: You may also have other contributors to the abstract who do not join us at the conference and they should be added in the box for non-presenting co-authors.

Page: Alternative Formats

●          Formats: You are requested to add two preferences (according to your priority) to follow your first choice made when starting submission. However, ACPC reserves the right to change the format to best suit the Conference structure, this may include a format you have not selected.

○          Oral 60 mins (panels included)

○          Oral 30 mins

○          Fifteen Minute Discussion Tables

○          Pecha Kucha

○          Poster

Page: Your Abstracts

On this page, you can return to editing, submit, view and view as pdf your abstracts (the ones you are a submitting author for). Remember to submit your abstract when you are ready!

Review Criteria

Depending upon the abstract, some or all of the following criteria will be taken into account:

• The relevance and timeliness of the content for RMA.
• Overall clarity and completeness of the abstract.
• The appropriate level of audience experience.
• The intended learning outcomes – take away messages.
• Relevance to the Conference theme.
• Quality and level of speakers: Do they have sufficient knowledge and experience of the topic? Except for new speakers, do they have good feedback from previous sessions? (Note: we welcome both previous and new speakers).
• A number of speakers (please fully justify in the abstract if more than 2 speakers are required.
• The novelty of the topic: Where possible, the Programme Committee looks to support new ideas for topics not previously covered. Please see the relevant Call for Abstracts. However, if the topic is not particularly novel, it will still be evaluated favourably if it can be justified in terms of any of the following:
  • essential for the day-to-day work of an RMA
  • update to previous knowledge
  • particularly helpful for beginners

Other issues

• Limits on number of participants: EARMA’s aim is for sessions to be open to all delegates. Therefore, we do not normally accept limits on sessions, the limit is defined by the size of the room allocated to your presentation. Normally only workshops have a limited participation. Workshops take place as a pre-conference event, usually by invitation only. Nevertheless, if your session does require a limit on participants, a full justification should be given.
• Repeat sessions: We may also ask whether you would be willing to do a repeat session. We would only ask this where your session is likely to be very popular. However, whilst this would greatly help the conference organisation, there is absolutely no obligation to accept.
• Speakers: Please note that speakers need to register by the early bird rate deadline (EBRD) (January 2024). If at least one speaker of the proposal is not yet registered by the EBRD, the Programme Committee reserves the right to withdraw the abstract from the programme.
• Chairs: Once a draft programme is ready, the Programme Committee will launch a call for session chairs. Therefore, your session will be assigned a chair closer to the conference. The submission form will allow you to volunteer to be a chair at a Conference session. Please consider ii.

GDPR: The system is GDPR-compliant. For more information, see Term and Conditions.

Annex 1: Session Formats 

●          Standard Oral Presentation (30/60 mins): The format is the more traditional format and consists of one (two) speakers and allows time for questions and answers. This is a suitable format if the participants need updates on current issues or to receive new information. There are two specific types of presentation:

○          Oral Presentation: The majority of the programme sessions will be parallel which oral presentation submissions will be considered for.

○          Plenary session (not available through the abstract submission system): These are mostly initiated by the Programme Committee and/or the Board. Plenary sessions are stand-alone sessions. If you think that your topic is worthy of consideration for a plenary please contact the Programme Committee chair.

Length of a standard presentation can be: 55 min + 5 min Q&A or 25 min +5 min Q&A

• Panel Session (usually 60 mins): Focuses on stimulating an interactive discussion with multiple speakers and a moderator. Speakers (2-4 usually) give their views on a certain topic and discuss their opinions with one another and the audience, under the guidance of a moderator. It is recommended that approximately 30% of the session is dedicated to questions and answers, discussions or other formats that encourage audience participation. One submission per panel session to be submitted detailing the topic and all panellists.

The length of a panel session should be 60 min (Q&A included).

• Fifteen-Minute Discussion Tables: Within an hour time slot, there will be a maximum of four round table ‘presentations’. Each table will be hosted by the “presenter”. Host presenters need only have a question and some expertise in that area; conference delegates will choose a table to start at and spend 15 minutes there; after 15 minutes, all the delegates will rotate around to the next table, and so on until all the tables have been visited. Each fifteen-minute session will comprise a 2 minutes introduction of a theme, problem, or issue, by the host presenter, who will then moderate an open discussion for the remainder of the fifteen minutes. Each host presenter will cover the same topic up to four times in the session with different groups of delegates. It is sensible to have a supplementary question ready to stimulate debate. Delegates do not need to prepare for these sessions, just to be ready for quick wide-ranging discussions and remember who they would further like to talk to afterward in the coffee break and beyond. Many presenters find it useful to prepare and bring printed copies of an A4 information sheet as a take-away for delegates.  But there is strictly no Powerpoint.  A concrete problem or case studies are most suitable for this format.

Length of each discussion table presentation lasts max 15 min (2 min presentation of the topic + 13 min discussion).

●          Pecha Kucha: A Pecha Kucha is a very short (6 minutes and 40 seconds) presentation format with exactly 20 slides shown for 20 seconds each (and set to advance automatically!). It is a very dynamic and exciting style of presentation that takes a lot of planning - there is no time to waste - you need to know exactly what you want to say and what information (not much!) you want on each slide.
Practising beforehand is imperative! We will group a number of Pecha Kuchas into a single one-hour session and leave some time for questions at the end.

●          Poster: Some topics can be best explained by an A0 poster on which an idea, new insight or process is presented. Posters should be designed in an attractive way in order to appeal to the audience. The main poster session will be held after lunch on the first day of the conference. Poster presenters should be by their posters then, but also any other break time to discuss their posters. Posters will be placed at a central spot at the conference venue and a vote for the best poster will be held.

●          Other formats (to be submitted as 60 mins oral): Other innovative methods of presenting and outlining a session are welcomed and encouraged – for example, questions and answers, interactive games, illustrating with film, etc. Please indicate in your abstract. Such sessions should be submitted under oral 60 mins, but stating clearly in the abstract the special form of the session. Any special technical or other requirements should be clearly indicated in the topic submission. We cannot guarantee meeting any requirements unless fully stated in the proposal. Note that the requirements should not generate additional substantial costs for EARMA.

●          Closed Session or group meeting: This is normally only for meetings which EARMA agrees to host. Such sessions should be submitted under oral 60 mins, but stating clearly in the abstract that the session is closed. Whilst these meetings will not be subject to the normal selection procedure, EARMA reserves the right to refuse a closed session where it is not relevant to the needs of the Association. We also have limited spaces at the venue and will not compromise the quality of the conference to accommodate these. For unofficial meetings, please contact other venues such as hotels or local universities for spaces for meetings.  A typical example of a closed session hosted is a meeting of an internal EARMA committee or thematic group or meetings of entities such as INORMS or the Leiden Group.

Sponsored Session (not available in the abstract submission, please contact johanna.roodt@earma.org): Some sessions may be sponsored, and this will be clearly indicated if applicable. Sponsored sessions are not advertorials of the product but a genuine contribution to the debate on RMA.

The length of a standard presentation can be 55 min + 5 min Q&A or 25 min +5 min Q&A.

Finally…

Thank you for reading this document and for making your submission. The Programme Committee wishes you every success, and we look forward to meeting you at Conference. 

Please think about joining our Programme Committee; there will be a call for new members later in the year.