The EMS Annual Meeting 2026 (EMS2026) will be held 6-11 September 2026 in Utrecht, The Netherlands at the Jaarbeurs conference center. The session programme will run from Monday (7 September 2026) morning at 09:00 CEST until Friday (11 September 2026) at least until lunch time, possibly into the afternoon or evening. The opening Icebreaker will take place on Sunday evening (6 September 2026) at 18:00 CEST.

The EMS2026 is run as a hybrid event, to provide opportunities onsite as well as online. Please find a short summary here.

The programmatic focus of the EMS2026 is "Delta Climate in Europe: weather, water and warnings". Read more

The timeline for the programme development and publication, with deadlines and milestones is available here.

Please note that we intend to offer the publication of recordings of all talks given in sessions of the EMS2026, provided the presenters and authors of a talk agree to this. The videos would be available on the EMS vimeo channel, alongside the recordings from EMS2024 and EMS2025. Furthermore the videos will be linked to each abstract directly from conference programme pages.

All authors are encouraged to upload supporting materials to accompany their abstracts. These can be uploaded from 15 July and will be made available to registered conference attendees until 12 October. Modifications are possible throughout this period. Authors can opt to make it publicly available after that.

For any complaints about conduct and breaches of the rules of conduct during the EMS2026 a conduct committee will be approachable.

All sessions and events will take place in Central European Summer Time (CEST).

As in previous years, there will also be an app available for Android and iOS in the respective app stores shortly before the conference. This app contains all relevant information about the conference, from the floor plan to the voting tool for the best poster.

The deadline to suggest a new session was 12 January 2026. The session proposal is closed for the EMS2026.

• The abstract submission tool will open in early February 2026. Authors will be notified about the acceptance of their abstract by 11 May 2026.
• Please note that Abstract Submission Fee is separate from the registration fee. All presenters must register for the EMS Annual Meeting.
• Detailed information with all the important details you need to know about submitting abstracts and the abstract processing fees can be found here.

Yes, the abstract submission fee (ASF) is 50€ per abstract. Please note that all presenters must register for the EMS Annual Meeting 2026.

No, the 50€ abstract submission fee is separate from the registration fee. Please note, all presenters must register for the EMS Annual Meeting 2026.

Yes, you can withdraw your abstract if you are unable to attend the meeting. Please make your withdrawal as early as possible so that changes can still be made to the programme. Alternatively, you can nominate another presenting author. These changes (abstract status change) can be made via 'MyEMS2026' - your personalized conference dashboard.

Speakers who have submitted an abstract can either give a presentation or present their work on a poster during one of the poster sessions. A preference can be indicated when submitting the abstract. Please note that not every preference can be guaranteed. Once the conveners have prepared the programme, all speakers will be informed about the type and time of their presentation. This will be announced at the end of June.

Oral presentations will follow the standard format (12 min + 3 min Q&A), while strictly selected solicited talks (one per session) are longer (25 min + 5 min). The time and length assigned for each contribution is given in the programme; this time includes discussion and change over.

Oral presentations are organized in oral sessions scheduled in specific lecture rooms at specific times. Oral sessions are scheduled in up to four time blocks of different lengths (75 min | 90 min | 120 min) per day; larger sessions cover multiple time blocks, and may run over more than one day.

All oral sessions are run in a fully hybrid mode, using the lecture room settings for onsite attendees combined with Zoom for online participants. This setup will allow both onsite and online attendees to follow and present in the session equally.

Uploads open on 15 July 2026 and files must be uploaded at least 24 hours before the session starts. The presentation file can either be uploaded by the contact author (who submitted the abstract) or the nominated presenting author of the abstract. Please note: you must have a paid conference registration (onsite or online) to access the upload tool.

A presentation file (i.e. slides for a talk) can be in *.pdf, *.ppt/pptx, *.pps/ppsx, *.png, *.jpg, or *.mp4 format. The size of presentation files is limited to 50 MB per abstract for *.pdf, *.ppt/pptx, *.pps/ppsx, *.png, and *.jpg files, and to 200 MB for *.mp4 video files

All onsite presentations are launched on the laptop in the lecture room, shared by the conference assistant in the Zoom session visible by onsite and online attendees equally. Onsite presenters control their slides themselves using the wireless presenter device (mouse) at the lectern. This device is also equipped with a virtual pointer. Speakers always have to speak into the lectern microphone: this is important as online attendees in Zoom would otherwise not hear what is said and would not be able to follow the presentation. Also, for attendees in the room, the microphone helps those who are hard of hearing.

No. Presentations must be played from the conference system. The file has to be uploaded at least 24 hours before your presentation starts.

Online presenters will join the session through the Zoom meeting; they have two options how their presentation is shared:

1. Their previously uploaded presentation file will be shared by the conference assistant on the lecture room laptop, and the assistant will also forward the slides when indicated by the presenter.
2. Online presenters share their presentation from their local device, and can thus move slides forward directly.

Once the presentation starts, the online presenter unmutes to speak to the onsite and online attendees, and may also activate the camera. The online speaker's camera feed is shown to the on-site attendees on the projector.

For online presenters, we strongly recommend downloading and using the Zoom client rather than accessing Zoom through the browser. To ensure sufficient quality, your bandwidth must have a capacity of at least 1 MBit/s upstream and 2 MBit/s downstream.

You may share slides from your device, but upload as a backup is required.

Onsite presenters must give a live presentation; online presenters are also requested to present live, but have the option to submit a pre-recorded talk should they be unable to be present due to time-zone differences, unstable internet connection, or other barriers.

Onsite presenters use a  wireless presenter device at the lectern.

Please make any changes as soon as possible using 'MyEMS2026' - your personalized conference dashboard. If this is no longer possible, then please inform the session chair and conference assistant before the session starts.

Presentation files for oral presentations are not shared outside your live session.

All authors are encouraged to upload supporting materials to accompany their abstracts. These can be uploaded from 15 July 2025 and will be made available to registered conference attendees until 12 October. Modifications are possible throughout this period. Authors can opt to make it publicly available after that.

Yes, oral sessions will be recorded.
The uploading author will be asked for agreement to the publication of their talk after the conference. This will be requested during the upload of the presentation slides. For presenters who agree to the publication of their talk, recordings will be made available online on the EMS Vimeo account and connected to the abstract on the conference website after the meeting.

Photo, screen capture or video taking of scientific material shown in any oral or poster presentation is not allowed unless the presenter authorizes this. Please inform the audience if you welcome photos or screen capture and their sharing on social media by including an official graphic "screen capture welcome" (download PNG, JPG, PDF) | "screen capture not allowed" (PNG, JPG, PDF) on all slides.

A digital timer device will be operated by the conference assistant. The count-down of the time still available for the presentation – colour coded – will be visible in the top right-hand corner of the screen to both onsite and online speakers and the audience: green light for 9 minutes, then orange light for 3 minutes to conclude presentation; after 12 minutes the time appears red during the 3-min discussion time.

A local print service is planned. Further information will be announced at a later date.

There are usually 2-3 poster sessions, which take place in the afternoon after the oral sessions. Exact times will be announced at a later date. The poster display area will be located in the "TransitZone" between the lecture rooms together with catering stations, exhibition and information desk.
Authors are also encouraged to be present at their poster during coffee break times in general. Please note that poster sessions will be run onsite only and that there will be no online poster session.

Poster (board) numbers are given in the respective session programme (and the Letter of Schedule sent to each author). The poster number, abstract number, related session acronym, and the name of the presenting author are indicated on each poster board.

Posters will be displayed for an extended period during the conference. Please check the display time for your poster presentation, included in the Letter of Schedule, and in the online programme for your session.
The poster author attendance time is 1.5-2 hours during the display period.

Authors are kindly asked to put up their posters as soon as possible within their given display time in order to enable the conference participants and the selection committee for the outstanding poster award to view their posters at any time within the display time. Fixing material is available at the information desk.

Specific times to take down the poster will be announced at a later date. Posters that have not been removed within this dismantling time will be removed and disposed of.

Uploads open on 15 July 2026. Supporting material can be updated until 12 October 2026. Please note: You must have a paid conference registration (onsite or online) to access the upload tool.

If you are participating in the OPA, upload your poster presentation file by 2 September to be eligible for consideration and public voting.

You can upload three separate types of material:

• Poster presentation file (your poster that will be accessible online to all registered conference participants during the scheduled display time. Please upload a PDF which is limited to 50MB).
• Poster pitch slide (one-slide to summarise/advertise your poster during a scheduled poster-pitch; a template is available here. These slides will be used in the oral sessions to introduce the posters shortly and this file will not be accessible to the public).
• Supporting material (additional files or links; this material will be accessible to all registered attendees until 12 October; authors can opt to make it publicly available after that).

A short (approx. 1-minute) summary of your poster, often scheduled within oral sessions. We recommend that authors of poster presentations are prepared to provide a summary of their contribution during the respective oral session. For most sessions, time for such poster pitches is allowed within the oral programme; please check the oral programme of your session on the website for details and prepare for this purpose.

Advice on how to prepare and structure a poster pitch ("elevator pitch") can be found for example in this video on YouTube: how to present poster - Presentation/Pitch.

All poster presenters are invited to apply for this award. Only poster presentations that have been uploaded as presentation file by a specific deadline will be considered for the award and can be voted on by the public.

As the organization and scheduling of poster presentations is a challenge, and empty poster boards are frustrating to look at during the conference week, it would be greatly appreciated if authors who already know that their poster cannot be presented - for any reason - to withdraw their abstract from the session programme as soon as their decision has been made. Please use the participants' tool EMS2026 dashboard for any changes.

Please note, that we monitor the no-shows during the conference, and the related abstracts will then be withdrawn from the session programme.

Photo, screen capture, or video taking of scientific material shown in any oral or poster presentation is not allowed unless the presenter authorizes this. Please inform the audience if you welcome photos or screen capture and their sharing on social media by including an official graphic "screen capture welcome" (download PNG, JPG, PDF) | "screen capture not allowed" (download PNG, JPG, PDF) on all slides.

Registration will open in May 2026. Please view the registration page  for more details.

The EMS Annual Meeting session programme has three programme streams covering various topics:

• Understanding Weather & Climate Processes (UP)
• Operational Systems and Applications (OSA)
• Engagement with Society (ES)

Usually, the oral presentations take place in 5-6 parallel sessions. These are held in different rooms that are as close to each other as possible to make it easy to move from one session to another.

Yes, there is a variety of other activities on offer. An icebreaker event takes place on the Sunday evening before the conference. On Monday, there is usually an extended programme for the conference opening, including an award ceremony. Keynotes take place throughout the week, with each of the three programme streams organizing one keynote. In addition, there are various excursions organized by the local hosts, as well as special activities for the early career scientists.

A convener is part of a team that is responsible for organizing a session. This includes writing/adapting the session description, evaluating submitted contributions, scheduling oral and poster presentations for the final programme, being present during the conference week, and moderating the session.
A convener team should have at least two conveners, ideally three or four to ensure that they can share the session chairing duties during the conference.

The task of the chairpersons is to run the session smoothly and make it informative, interesting, and lively by facilitating good communication between the speakers and the audience while also paying attention to keeping the schedule on time. They are supported by conference assistants, who mainly take care of technically running the oral session.

Convener teams are permanently assisted by the staff of Copernicus Meetings and the staff of the European Meteorological Society.

• We will inform you about any deadlines and tasks with regard to the organization of your session.
• All links and related instructions will be given by email.
• The Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer provides the tools to assist you in your tasks.

• 1 Dec 2025 to 12 Jan 2026 – call for session proposals: Submit a proposal by defining a session title, short title, scope, and convener team; or propose modifications to existing sessions; should your session already be in the programme from EMS2025, consider whether any updates of the scope may be appropriate and/or changes in the convener team need to be implemented.
• 01 Feb to 27 Mar 2026 – call for abstracts: Advertise your session to your community and networks and invite presentations.
• 08 to 19 Apr 2026 – Session organization I+II (SOI+SOII): Review, accept, transfer abstracts; file scheduling preferences.
• 22 May to 18 Jun 2026 – Session organization III (SOIII): Schedule oral and poster presentations, select solicited presentations, and schedule a slot for poster pitches during the oral session; define chair persons for the poster session and each block of the oral session.
• Register for the conference (early rates are available until Monday, 03 Aug 2026, 13:00 CEST).
• From July up to the conference, prepare for the session: Contact the presenters (via the mail tool) to inform them how you will run the session. Ask the poster presenters to provide their poster pitch slide. Read all abstracts again, think of questions for the presenters, monitor any upload of material by authors.
• At the conference: Be at the lecture room or poster area in time, make yourself familiar with the facilities; support by a conference assistant is provided. Detailed information on chairing and moderating oral and poster sessions will become available in spring 2026 in the relevant FAQ section.

For more detailed information on the individual tasks, please have a look at the following page: Timeline

You will be asked to use different tools of our Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system. You can access everything via the dashboard 'MyEMS2026'. Therefore, you will need a user account (user ID and password). In case you do not have an account, please create one first at Create Account

Please note, that we expect that those volunteering as conveners are normally planning to attend the EMS Annual Meeting onsite. Also, conveners need to register for the Annual Meeting, no registration fee waivers are generally provided.

Oral and poster sessions are moderated by (one of) the convener(s). Should this not be possible, speakers/authors may be nominated by the appropriate convener(s) to act as chairperson of a particular sub-session. Chairpersons are normally nominated during the SOIII – Presentation Selection phase, but updates can also be provided at a later stage. For the oral session parts, we strongly recommend nominating two chairpersons for each time block to cope with the different tasks of the hybrid organization of the session (onsite Q&A and online questions and contributions). It is mandatory that at least one chairperson is present onsite. Normally (one of) the convener(s) who prepared the session is also chairing (part of) the poster session.

• The conference assistant shares the slides
• The chair monitors the Zoom chat of virtual attendees
• The chair advises onsite presenters to use the microphone (to be audible to online participants)
• The chair always uses the hand-held microphone (online audience can hear you)
• The chair ensures that speakers from the audience in the room also use the microphone (same reason as above)
• Digital timer can be seen on the screen by onsite and online presenters and the audience. The chair ensures that the speakers keep to the time limit. The countdown of the time is colour coded:
• green (min 12:00 to 3:00) -- orange (min 2:59 to 0) -- red (stop presentation, invite questions until -3:00 min)
• The chair reminds the audience that photo and video taking is only permitted if authorized by the presenters
• The chairs come prepared: read all abstracts and prepare a question for each presenter

• Please check in advance when exactly the posters related to your session are on display and the time of the relevant poster session. Poster sessions at the EMS2026 will take place onsite only.
• As the chairperson, you should try to visit as many posters of your session as possible during the poster session. This task could be split, especially for sessions having many posters, by nominating more than one chairperson.

During the session planning, discuss with the other conveners whether a poster pitch slot should be scheduled in the oral session. This is recommended so that poster presenters also have an opportunity to briefly present their topic to a large audience. If you decide to schedule a slot, please take care of the organization. More information can be found under "How to prepare for chairing the poster pitches?".

A conference assistant will assist you onsite in technically running the oral session.

Equipment in the lecture room:

• There will be one laptop in each lecture room. Please note, it is NOT possible to use your own notebook. On the laptop, the conference assistant hosts Zoom to share the presentation slides. The conference assistant takes care of housekeeping in Zoom (i.e. muting participants if necessary) and follows the chat inside Zoom.
• Audio & video: There is a microphone for the speaker (on the lectern or portable). This year, a webcam will no longer be used to show the speaker's video in Zoom. In previous years, the correct alignment or positioning of the speaker in front of the camera was rarely taken into account.
• Chairperson & audience microphone: Hand-held microphones are available in each lecture room. Use the chairperson microphone when moderating the session. A second chairperson should be prepared to hand the second hand-held microphone to the person in the audience wanting to ask a question. Please ensure that all people use a microphone or do repeat their questions through your own microphone, so the online as well as the difficult-of-hearing onsite participants may also follow the discussion.
• Presenter device: All lecture rooms have a wireless presenter device at the lectern (virtual mouse) which also serves as a virtual pointer. The presenter device also serves to move the slides forward for onsite presenters.
• Time allocation & timer: All times allocated for presentations (normally 15 minutes) also include the time for discussions and the change-over. For a standard slot, this means that the presentation should finish after 12 minutes, thus leaving time for questions and discussions. To help you keep the session on time, a digital timer is integrated onto the screen, visible in the top right-hand corner of the screen, to onsite and online participants alike. Please do keep this setting as pre-set.
  The countdown of the time still available for the presentation – colour coded – will be visible in the top right-hand corner of the screen: green light for 9 minutes, then orange light for 3 minutes to conclude presentation; after 12 minutes the time appears red during the 3-minute discussion time.

The fully hybrid session approach involves speakers and audience, both online and onsite. Online speakers need the same attention as onsite speakers in the lecture room, and questions can come from onsite attendees (hand microphones will be available) as well as from online attendees (through the Zoom chat or asking live questions in Zoom). Chairpersons are asked to pay particular attention to the online audience, by welcoming them specifically, and reserving the first question for an online participant. Please ask the online participants to keep their microphones muted unless presenting or invited to ask a question.

All oral presentations – onsite and online – must be uploaded to the conference platform in advance of the start of the session. The conference assistant will have downloaded these before the start of the session and will start each presentation for onsite presenters at the scheduled time.
Online participants are welcome to share their slides from their own device; the upload is requested as a back-up should the slide-sharing fail; the conference assistant can then share the slides locally in the room.

Poster presenters have the option to upload 1 slide for their poster pitch. These will also be downloaded by the conference assistant.

The full session programme including times for each presentation is uploaded on 22 June 2026. All authors are/were informed on that day about their presentation type and time.

Programme changes & daily programme: Any programme changes received after the programme has been uploaded, and until 10 days before the meeting, will be included in the "Daily Programme" (printed or displayed on a screen). Should you be contacted about any modifications in your session programme by authors, please forward this information directly to: ems2026@copernicus.org.

These changes will be included in the daily programme for each lecture room and will be shown outside or near the entrance of the corresponding room.

Personalized conference dashboard (convener login using 'MyEMS2026')

• In your conference dashboard, you can update chairperson names (SOIII – presentation selection view), add public information to your session to be shown to the people reading the online programme, and use the mail tool (blue button at the bottom) to contact your corresponding authors with any final information you would like to provide (Session modification);
• Contact authors and chairpersons by email to inform them on how you intend to run the session, inform poster presenters on any planned poster pitch times and how you want to run these, etc;
• Conveners see an overview of all uploaded supporting material. Presentation files are also accessible but these are expected to become available only shortly before the meeting as authors often leave preparation and fine-tuning to the last minute. For poster presenters also the upload of one poster pitch slide is possible. Authors must upload their material at least 24 hours before their presentation.
• Session materials and summary: Until 12 October 2026 files and links can be uploaded via your conference dashboard. Session material, for example for a short introduction to the session, can be uploaded by conveners in advance and is then also available for display in the lecture room.
  1. You can upload a file and a link to a website.
  2. In addition, you can upload a file and a link containing a session summary.
  
  All files and links will be accessible in the conference programme and accessible for registered attendees only. Files can be uploaded in the formats *.pdf, *.ppt/pptx, *.pps/ppsx, *.png, *.jpg, or *.mp4. The file size is limited to 50 MB, exception: video files are limited to 200 MB. If using videos inside PowerPoint files, please embed the video: simply putting a link will not work. Uploaded *.mp4 video files are hosted on Vimeo, which implies the acceptance of the Vimeo guidelines. We strongly encourage you to include closed captions in your video. Session material and session summary files are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, please read the full licence agreement. External contents linked from the conference programme must follow the standards for an ethically correct, equitable, safe, open, and respectful environment for scientific activities.

Rule 1: Prepare yourself

Prepare yourself for the session and in particular for the discussion parts, by reading the abstracts and looking at the authors’ extended supporting material or presentation files beforehand. Thus, you will always be aware of what to expect during the flow of the session and be in a good position to steer a lively and interesting discussion. Based on the material presented in these uploads, you may prepare one question for each presenter that can be put to the author during Q&A – in case there are no questions from the audience.

Please monitor your session through the conference dashboard (Convener login) up to the scheduled session times. In particular, please check any last-minute withdrawals; should these occur for oral presentations, try to find a step-in talk. Schedule a poster pitch slot (if not yet in the programme) or foresee & prepare a discussion slot.

Rule 2: Get to the venue early and make sure all facilities are working

Get to the venue well in time, agree with your co-chair on who will monitor the online questions and who will moderate the session in the lecture room, and introduce yourself to the assistant. Acquaint yourself with the tablet and ask the assistant if anything seems unclear.

Rule 3: Find out in advance whether all your speakers are present

In order to avoid the situation of suddenly having to fill a gap, try in advance to find out whether all your speakers are likely to be present:

• Check with the conference assistant whether presentation files have been uploaded for each scheduled presentation.
• Check that online presenters are in Zoom and that onsite presenters are present in the lecture room.

Rule 4: Let your speakers know the rules

A session will run more smoothly if you let all the speakers know how you plan to run your session. This could be done by email before the event. Remind them how much time they have to speak, how much time to allow for questions, and how you will let them know time is up will avoid confusion later on.

Rule 5: Introduce yourself and the speakers

Introduce yourself and welcome the audience to the session. Make a point of specifically welcoming the online attendees of the session. Regarding the speakers, introduce each one before they begin and provide their affiliation. Remember however, not to use the precious and limited time allowed to the speaker for their presentation.

Rule 6: Do not let things overrun: time schedule and programme gaps

Open the session exactly on the scheduled time and introduce yourself and your co-chair to the audience. Timing is particularly essential to ensure that a meeting runs smoothly. Timing is particularly acute in view of multiple parallel sessions as many participants will want to switch between talks in different sessions and attend selected presentations. Also, right timing should enable participants to leave the session at an adequate time for lunch, coffee breaks, transportation, etc. Therefore, if a gap should occur in the time schedule and no stand-by paper is available to fill in, we ask conveners/chairpersons to be prepared for such an event by either allowing discussions on the previous talks, allowing general discussions on the item of the session and/or related topics or foreseeing a stand-in presentation.

In case no poster pitches have already been scheduled in the programme, foreseeing such short introductions to the posters related to the session is also a possibility.

Rule 7: Communicate how much time is left to the speaker

Letting the speaker know their time is up is crucial to keeping the time. This will help the speaker, the audience and yourself to keep track of the time. You may also consider giving them a sign 3 minutes before the time is up. However, make sure you bring your own watch so you can monitor time. If you do not know what time a speaker started, it is difficult to know when to ask them to stop so always write down the start and finish times of speakers throughout the session.

Rule 8: Keep control of the Question and Answer sessions and involve the online audience

It is your job to stimulate and spark the interest of people at the session and have them stay in the auditorium. It is difficult for the session chairs to keep things on time if the speaker is in control of taking questions. Ask the online audience to put their questions in Zoom or to raise their hands if they would like to ask their question live. Make sure you are the one who selects the next questioner. The first question allowed should be one from online participants. Also, be prepared to step in if the speaker and questioner are getting into a long-winded, technical discussion.

Rule 9: Prepare some questions in advance

A good scientific session is characterized by a lively question and answer session. It can take an audience a few seconds to digest the contents of a talk and think of questions. So, it is always good to have one or two questions ready to ask. These can be prepared beforehand by reading the abstracts and the supporting material that has been uploaded by the author in advance and supplemented with those that occur to you during the talk. Also, it is worth thinking of one or two general purpose questions such as "How do you plan to continue this research work?"

Rule 10: Time keeping is vital, so do not be afraid to move on without questions

Some speakers may expect to answer questions even after their allotted time is up. If you are running over time, you should not be afraid to move on to the next talk without questions. You will be more confident in enforcing this principle if you have warned the speaker beforehand that running over time will mean no time for questions. You can stay on schedule by diplomatically saying that “the speaker will be happy to take questions during the break”.

We hope these tips will help you as chairperson in this essential task for the conference. We thank you very much for your contributions, efforts, and preparations in the organization and running of your session!

Many of the rules are taken or inspired by the following article: Ten Simple Rules for Chairing a Scientific Session by Bateman A., Bourne, P.E. (2009) Ten Simple Rules for Chairing a Scientific Session. PLoS Comput Biol 5(9): e1000517.doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000517. Copyright: © 2009 Bateman, Bourne. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Prepare yourself

Prepare yourself for the session by reading the abstracts of the contributions and checking whether the authors have uploaded any supporting material to the conference platform in advance of the session. Thus, you can be aware of what to expect and be in a good position to instigate a discussion with the poster presenter. Conveners see an overview of all uploaded supporting material in the session modification dashboard. Live presentation files, i.e. the electronic posters, are also accessible.

Get to the poster area early

Get to the poster area early and make sure you know in which part of the area posters of your session are located and which are the poster board numbers with posters of your session.

Find out in advance whether all poster presenters are present

Go through the poster area on the day of the poster session and check whether the posters have already been put up at the designated poster boards. As poster sessions are essentially scheduled towards the end of the poster display times, browsing the posters in advance should be possible in most cases.

If you have scheduled time for poster pitches in your session, please invite poster presenters in advance to prepare 1 slide about their poster. A template for a poster pitch slide is available to presenters.

Poster authors have the option to upload a poster pitch slide, in addition to the poster itself (presentation file) and any supporting material. You do have access to these pitch slides via the convener dashboard. The conference assistant in the room will have access to the poster pitch slides and can present them.

To contact the authors, please log into your session dashboard; using the mail tool (blue button at the bottom) you can select presenting authors of poster presentations.

Gaps in the oral programme: In case a time for poster pitches has not been scheduled, please still prepare as recommended above, as a gap that may occur in your oral session due to a presenter not showing up; this time may then be used for poster pitches.

Otherwise, many of the "rules" prepared for the chairperson guidelines for oral sessions apply accordingly for the poster pitches:

• Introduce the poster presenter;
• Mention the poster board number;
• Ensure that the speaker is audible to the online participants
• Communicate to the speaker how much time is available for the poster pitch; for example, stand up after 45 seconds and end after 01:00 min; the digital timer visible on screen may be used;
• NO questions and answers: Do not allow questions and discussions during the poster introduction time, but invite the audience to discuss all questions and suggestions with the author in front of the poster during the poster session.