How To Submit

You must submit your proposal using the online submission form. Proposals sent by email will not be considered. Proposals that are incomplete will not be considered.

All ESA Annual Meeting proposal and abstract deadlines are 5:00 PM Eastern so that technical support and ESA staff assistance will be immediately available when submitters need it. If you begin your submission very close to the deadline, you are choosing to take a risk, and we will not make an exception if you are unable to complete your submission in time. The form automatically closes at 5:00 Eastern Time (2:00 Pacific Time) whether you have completed your submission or not.

You will receive an automatic email when you complete your submission. Every speaker listed in the proposal will receive a similar email. You will be able to return to the proposal to edit it until the submission deadline has passed.

To submit a proposal, you will need to log in using an ESA member account. If you have not been an ESA member or registered for an ESA meeting in recent years, you will need to create an ESA member account before you can submit. You do not need to pay membership dues to create an ESA member account or submit for the meeting.

Important Note

ESA meetings, open to ESA members and those interested in ecology, are among the most respected meetings of ecologists in the science community. ESA is committed to providing a safe, productive and welcoming environment. All participants including, but not limited to, attendees, speakers, volunteers, exhibitors, ESA staff, service providers and others are expected to abide by the ESA Meetings Code of Conduct. This Code of Conduct applies to all ESA meeting-related events including those sponsored by organizations other than ESA but held in conjunction with ESA events, in public or private facilities. In addition, ESA members and authors of ESA publications must adhere to the ESA Code of Ethics and the ESA Diversity Statement.

About Symposia

Symposia are the scientific centerpiece of the meeting. These sessions are organized around a specific topic and include 4 speakers, all of whom are invited by the organizer at the proposal stage. Symposia are distinguished from other organized sessions in that they are more explicitly integrated, provide an overall synthesis on their topic, and have broad enough appeal to generate strong interest at the meeting.

Proposals are encouraged to address the meeting theme, “Ecology is Everywhere”, if appropriate, but doing so is not necessary. Any timely and coherent subject of broad ecological interest will be considered. We also welcome proposals that explore interdisciplinary connections with areas of social and natural science outside of ecology or that relate to ecological education at any level.

Each symposium consists of 4 talks, each scheduled for a 20 minute timeslot (15 minute talk + 5 minutes for Q&A). Proposals listing more or fewer than 4 confirmed speakers will not be considered. The session will end with a 10 minute discussion.

We will not offer any hybrid or virtual sessions this year. All speakers for accepted invited paper sessions should plan to present in person in Baltimore. We are unable to accommodate remote presentations.

All paper sessions will have a student volunteer who will help each presenter load their slides, introduce them, and signal how much time is remaining for each talk. They will also manage Q&A for each speaker. We ask that each session organizer manage the discussion period at the end of the session.

Proposal Format

• Submitter agreements. The submitter must agree to abide by the Code of Conduct for ESA Events, the ESA Code of Ethics, and the ESA Diversity Statement.
• Session title (up to 50 words). A short and descriptive title works best.
• Organizer (Name, institution, email, country). This person is the point of contact for the session and responsible for communicating with speakers. This can only be one person.
• Co-organizers (Name, institution, email, country for each). There can be any number of co-organizers, including zero.
• 4 Confirmed speakers (Name, institution, email, country, and tentative talk title for each). Only speakers who have been contacted and have committed to the session should be listed. The talk title can be updated later during abstract submission, but please avoid vague placeholder titles (note the review criteria).
• Session description (up to 200 words): Describe the theme and purpose of this session. The session description should avoid overly specialized language. Any ecologist attending the meeting should be able to understand it. It may include background information, goals, objectives, importance, and interest to the membership of ESA. This description will appear in the online program and be read by attendees deciding whether or not to attend the session. Please do not duplicate information that appears elsewhere here (session title, organizer name, speakers names, speaker topics, etc.)
• Session justification (up to 200 words): The justification should focus on how the review criteria are met by the proposal. It should not simply repeat the session description. The session justification will only be seen by peer reviewers and the committee. It will not appear in the meeting program.
• Diversity and inclusion: ESA is committed to promoting diversity in all areas of activity, including the Annual Meeting. In keeping with this policy, organizers of invited sessions are expected to affirmatively promote ESA’s Diversity Statement by including representation from diverse voices and demographics, especially Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, LGBTQ2S people, people with disabilities, or others who have been and are currently marginalized. While not every session must include every aspect of human diversity, we ask you to please confirm that you have taken efforts to ensure a diverse and inclusive session: (Yes/No)
• Topical track (select up to 2, optional): Would you like this session to be considered for inclusion in any of the following tracks? Please only select a track if you think it’s a good fit for this proposal.
  • Career Exploration
  • Education
  • Justice, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (JEDI)
  • Data Skills Training
  • Traditional Ecological Knowledge
  • Communication and Engagement
• Scheduling conflicts (up to 200 words, optional): Are there other sessions we should be aware of when scheduling this one? Please provide the title, submitter, and session type for each session mentioned. Due to the complex nature of scheduling, we cannot consider organizer or speaker availability when scheduling sessions. This will only be seen by the committee. It will not appear in the meeting program. Is the session intended to be linked to another session or social event? Are there any other sessions you are aware of that should not be scheduled at the same time as this one?

Demographic Questions about the Session Organizer

The submission form asks a few questions about the session organizer to help ESA improve our services and monitor our efforts towards diversity, equity, inclusion and justice. You will be asked to answer the following questions about the lead session organizer for this proposal.  All information will be shared only in the aggregate to help us assess the diversity of our submissions. Proposal reviewers and the committee will not see this information for individual proposals. It is required that you answer each question, but you can select “Prefer not to answer”.

What best describes your race and/or ethnicity? You can select multiple answers.

• Asian/Asian American
• Black/African American
• Native American / Alaskan Native
• Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander
• Middle Eastern or North African
• Hispanic/Latinx
• White
• Bi/Multiracial
• Other
• Prefer to self describe (free response option)
• Prefer not to answer

Where are you currently in your career? You can only select one.

• Undergraduate Student
• Graduate Student (includes PhD students)
• Post Doc
• Early Career (1-8 years since final degree, excluding post docs)
• Mid-Career (within 25 years since final degree)
• Senior Professional (more than 25 years since final degree)
• Retired
• Other (please describe)
• Prefer not to answer

What best describes your gender? You can only select one.

• Female
• Male
• Non-binary
• Prefer to self describe (free response option)
• Prefer not to answer

Advice To Help Your Submission Go Smoothly

• Read the proposal requirements and review criteria before you start developing your proposal. You may find the idea you have in mind is a better fit for one of the other session formats.
• Start recruiting speakers as soon as possible. This generally takes longer than most people think it will. You do need a complete list of confirmed speakers and tentative talk titles (not final, but specific) for each person.
• We recommend submitting from a computer. The submission form is not optimized for mobile devices.
• The submission form only accepts plain text. Your proposal should not include links, formatting (such as italics or bold). Unfortunately we cannot support subscripts, superscripts, special characters, or Greek and mathematical symbols.
• You will be able to search our member database list to find people to enter for your session in different roles. Even though affiliations will appear for some people in the list, you will need to enter everyone’s affiliations after you add them to the proposal. We advise you to make sure you have everyone’s affiliations as they would like it to appear in the meeting program.

Review Criteria

All proposals will be peer reviewed by reviewers selected by the ESA Program Subcommittee. The Program Subcommittee may accept, decline, or offer an opportunity to present the proposed session in a more appropriate session type. Proposals will be assessed using the following criteria. The weight of particular criteria may vary depending on the nature of proposals.

Criteria for a strong Symposium proposal

Relevance and impact

• offers significant contributions to the field of ecology.
• presents innovative or interdisciplinary approaches, including novel collaborations or syntheses across subdisciplines of ecology or with other related disciplines.
• has broad enough appeal to generate strong interest at the meeting.
• benefits broader society (for example through education, public policy, communication/public engagement, application to commercial technology, national security or international cooperation).

Structure and organization

• is explicitly more integrated than other oral sessions.
• provides strong overall synthesis or overview; they should not be simply a set of related case studies.
• avoids taking a narrow perspective on the symposium topic (organizers carefully avoid the appearance of biases toward their own perspectives).
• builds a well-integrated whole (each talk should have clear relevance to the overall synthesis provided by the symposium).

Speakers

• lists 4 confirmed speakers (speakers who have been contacted and have committed to the session).
• includes a specific title for every speaker’s talk.
• involves diverse perspectives and voices as elaborated in the ESA Diversity Statement, beyond or in addition to career stage and disciplinary diversity.

Other details to consider

In the interest of broadening participation, an individual can be the lead organizer for only one invited paper session (symposium, organized oral session, Inspire session). If you are working with a group to submit related proposals as a series, each proposal should be led by a different person. There is no limit on how many proposals you can help organized as a co-organizer, only on taking the lead.

One presentation rule

Speakers who commit to speaking in a symposium should be aware that the one presentation rule will be enforced. Anyone who is the presenter in the session cannot also present a talk or a poster in another scientific session (symposium, organized oral, contributed talk, contributed poster, latebreaking poster). Organizers are responsible for notifying any speakers they recruit about this rule. The one presentation rule does not apply to participants speaking in Inspire sessions, special sessions, short courses, workshops, or a plenary.

There is an exemption to the one presentation rule for an author submitting an abstract for a second presentation IF the second abstract is primarily focused on education or outreach. If a speaker is unsure whether an exemption would apply in their case, they are welcome to ask the Program Chair in advance.

If Your Proposal is Accepted

After acceptance decisions have been made and the scheduling for the meeting is underway, cancellations and schedule changes are very disruptive to meeting planning. It is therefore very important that session organizers obtain firm commitments from their invited speakers before submitting their proposal. If a proposal is accepted, the organizer will be required to submit an up-to-date version of the session details and confirmed speaker list within a few weeks of acceptance.

Communication with speakers

If a proposal is accepted as a session, it is very important that the organizer communicates with speakers starting with the acceptance of the session and continuing throughout all stages of program development. This includes communicating with speakers about session acceptance, abstract requirements and deadlines, session scheduling, and expectations for participation in the conference. Ongoing and clear communication is important to the success of a session.

Other helpful information

Here are a few details that all speakers should know up front. Miscommunication about them can disrupt session planning later in the process.

• Scheduling. We are unable to honor scheduling requests. When asking speakers to commit to the session, organizers should inform them that the session could be scheduled any day Monday through Thursday. We cannot schedule or move a session to accommodate the availability of speakers.

• Abstract Submission. Speakers who fail to submit an abstract on time will be removed from the session. It is the responsibility of the session organizer to make sure each speaker submits an abstract for their talk using the unique link that will be emailed to each speaker. It is important to make sure all speakers are aware of the abstract submission deadline early on.

• Abstract Fee. All speakers who submit an abstract for an accepted invited session will be asked to pay an abstract fee at the time of abstract submission. This fee is $35 for students and $60 for non-students and is non-refundable. Speakers are unable to pay this fee due to a lack of funding will be able to opt out during the payment step of abstract submission. The abstract fee covers technical costs associated with abstract submission.

• Meeting Registration. All session participants, including the organizer, any co-organizers, and all speakers, are required to register for the conference. Organizers are responsible for making this clear to their speakers early in the process.

Bulletin report

With the acceptance of your symposium for inclusion in the annual meeting, you and your team also must prepare a report on the symposium for the ESA Bulletin by November 10th, 2025 (after the August meeting). If this is an inconvenience, we can negotiate the next deadline at February 10th, 2026.

The report should be informative of the main points made in the symposium. The format can be of your choosing either reporting on what individual speakers said or a synthesis of the main points. The length can be up to 5 to 10 typed pages although longer can be discussed with the Editor in Chief. Pictures and graphs are encouraged. We look forward to your submission. Submission is by scholar1 on the ESA Bulletin manuscript submission site. If you have acted as a co-author or reviewer on an ESA Journals manuscript in the past five years, you will already have log-in credentials.

Cancellations

For session organizers

Once a session has been accepted and listed online, cancellation imposes a serious burden. Do not submit a proposal if you are uncertain that you will be able to fulfill your obligation to organize and conduct the session. Once a session is accepted by the Program Chair, cancellation by the session organizers may preclude the organizers from being allowed to submit any proposals for sessions for the 2026 ESA Annual Meeting.

For presenters

When submitting an abstract, presenters should be reasonably confident that they will attend the meeting and give the presentation as scheduled.  We understand that planning ahead is particularly challenging this year, but the presenting author should notify ESA Meetings as soon as possible if a presentation needs to be cancelled.  Please cancel by May 1 if possible, to help us minimize gaps in the final meeting program as well as receive an abstract fee refund if you paid the fee.

Important Dates

November 14, 2024    Deadline to submit a session proposal.

January 16, 2025         Session acceptance notification.

Late February 2025     Abstract submission opens for invited speakers.

March 20, 2025           Deadline for speakers to submit abstracts.

May 1, 2025                Deadline for speakers to cancel presentations.

Questions?

Contact ESA’s Meetings Team at meetings@esa.org