Call for Proposals:

Workshops, Symposia, Focus Groups, OceansOnline

*Due to a technical error in the online proposal submission system, anyone who submitted a proposal prior to 20 October 2015 needs to forward their confirmation email to Meeting Chair Samantha Oester (soester@gmu.edu) to ensure all information was received.*

The 4th International Marine Conservation Congress, Making Marine Science Matter, will be held from 30 July – 3 August 2016 at the Delta Conference Centre, St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (YYT). OceansOnline will be held 4 August 2016.

The Call for Proposals will be open 30 September – 16 November 2015. All proposals must be submitted via the online submission form: http://birenheide.com/IMCC2016/submissions/sessionproposal.php. (Please visit the Accessibility page if you need the submission form made available in a different format.)  The information below includes guidelines for submitting proposals for workshops, symposia, focus groups and OceansOnline.

If you have questions or need assistance, please email the Scientific Program Committee.

Information for the Call for Abstracts for oral (spoken), speed (short spoken), and poster presentations is available on a separate page.

On this page:

 

Congress Theme

The overall theme of the congress is Making Marine Science Matter. For marine conservation to be effective, marine conservation science must matter to stakeholders, policy makers, and practitioners. To accomplish this, the congress will be organized around specific topics of interest for marine conservation in general, as well as the local geographic region. This list is not meant to be exhaustive but merely a guide for proposers. Others topics of interest are welcomed.

  • Communicating marine conservation
  • Fisheries, aquaculture and the oceans
  • Marine food security
  • Conservation and management of the Arctic and Antarctic
  • Conservation engineering
  • Ocean science technology
  • Marine energy
  • Marine policy
  • Climate, ocean acidification, and the changing oceans
  • Culture and the marine environment
  • Advancing marine conservation through international treaties
  • Effective marine conservation planning
  • Participation in marine conservation science (e.g. citizen and indigenous science)
  • Marine tourism
  • Estuary and coastal restoration
  • Conservation at the land-sea interface

In addition, the SCB Marine Section developed a list of 71 research questionscritical to the advancement of marine conservation. We encourage proposals that address one or more of these questions.

OceansOnline proposals should be relevant to marine conservation communication and online tools and resources for marine conservation and marine science. Proposals for OceansOnline should select the “OceansOnline” category and sub-category of workshop, presentation or facilitated discussion.

 

Criteria for Selection

We strongly encourage proposals from individuals and groups involved in cutting-edge marine conservation science or practice that can demonstrate how their proposed symposium, workshop, or focus group “makes marine science matter.” We also encourage proposals that align with a specific topic(s) of interest and/or addresses one or more of the 71 research questions. We will review, however, all marine science and marine conservation proposals. Our key criterion for prioritizing submissions is proposals that “make marine science matter.”

All symposia and focus groups are expected to produce tangible and actionable outputs that could advance marine conservation (e.g., white paper, policy statement, peer-reviewed presentation, website, etc.).

Limits on number of presentations per presenter
No individual may give more than one presentation in the following categories: symposium, contributed paper, contributed poster.

Reviews
Reviewers have access to all information contained in the proposal. Proposals are blind reviewed by at least three individuals. To increase the probability that your proposal will be selected for presentation, please consider the following criteria carefully:

  • Relevance to the overall theme of the congress (Making Marine Science Matter) and the specific topics of interest and/or 71 research questions
  • Application to marine conservation / Clear connection to conservation science, policy, management, practice
  • Quality of the proposal
  • Financial support for speaker attendance at the meeting (external support or self-funded participants)
  • Novelty of the topic (topic addresses a new question or problem, or approaches traditional questions from a novel perspective or in a new region. This is not a strict requirement but may give your proposal an advantage when all other criteria are met)

MOST IMPORTANTLY – proposals should clearly denote the proposed output for the focus group or symposium (e.g., whether it is a published action plan, workshop report, white paper, proposal, journal article/ special collection of articles). Focus groups and symposium organizers will be requested to commit to producing a tangible output and will not be approved without such commitment. Moreover, focus group/symposium organizers will likewise commit to keeping the IMCC4 program committee informed of publications or actions arising from their focus group or symposium.

Author registration rule: All organizers of accepted proposals and their invited speakers and attendees must register and be paid in full by the early registration deadline of 24 April 2016. Authors failing to comply with this rule will not be included in the Congress.

Financial support: It is the responsibility of organizers of symposia, workshops, and discussion groups to obtain funding for their own expenses and those of their invited speakers or invited participants. SCB and the Local Organizing Committee are not responsible for obtaining funds to support speaker travel to the meeting and cannot guarantee that any support will be available. Preference may be given to proposals for which organizers can demonstrate that funds are likely to be available.

 

Choosing the Category of Your Proposal

Please think carefully about the category that best meets your goals. Your proposal will only be considered for the category you choose. (OceansOnline proposals are the only exception to this rule. Explanation can be found at the bottom of this page.)*

Symposia present information to an audience with opportunity for interaction. Symposia will be scheduled during the primary days of the meeting (main scientific program). Symposia are two hours in length with, at a minimum, the last 15 minutes left open for discussion.

If your proposal is accepted, all symposium speakers will be required to submit an abstract during the call for abstracts; please coordinate with your presenters so that all abstracts are submitted by the abstract deadline of 7 March 2016 at 5pm GMT.  Symposia that do not have all abstracts submitted may be dropped from the program. Instructions on how to submit will be provided in the notice of acceptance of your symposium proposal. It is also the responsibility of the symposium organizer to make sure that all speakers register according to the author registration rule.

Workshops, whether geared toward students or professionals, are more interactive than symposia and often have an educational/technical component. There will be two types of workshops – short workshops during lunch on days of the main scientific program and workshops held before or after the Congress. Workshops held during lunch will be approximately 1.5 hours in length, and workshops held before the scientific program can be any length, up to eight hours. These workshops can be held for up to two days. Pre-meeting workshops will require a separate fee for participants in addition to the Congress registration fee to offset the additional costs of running the workshop offsite. Any special needs or equipment might incur additional costs. These will be communicated at the time of acceptance of the proposal. Please contact the IMCC Program Committee with any questions.

Focus Groups bring together people with diverse expertise to develop tangible and actionable outputs—such as a list of recommendations, publication, policy briefing or white paper—on a specific marine conservation issue. Focus groups can be held for up to two days, for two hours or longer in duration. To minimize conflict with symposia and contributed paper sessions, focus groups of greater than two hours (max. eight hours) will be scheduled before or after the main scientific program. Focus groups of two hours in duration will generally be scheduled during the main scientific program. Focus groups typically have a smaller number of participants (10-30 maximum) than workshops. Pre-meeting and post-meeting focus groups will require a separate fee for participants in addition to the congress registration fee to offset the additional costs of running the focus group offsite. Any special needs or equipment might incur additional costs. These will be communicated at the time of acceptance of the proposal. Please contact the IMCC Program Committee with any questions.

Symposium + Focus Group: To increase the opportunity for continued discussion, a Focus Group may be combined with a Symposium. If accepted, the Focus Group will be scheduled to follow the Symposium and we will do our best to schedule it for the same or next day. Combined Symposium+Focus Groups will run during the main congress. Please note that proposers are required to submit separate proposals for the Symposium and Focus Group, but must indicate that the proposals are linked. Proposers must justify the joint session. Also note that it is possible that the Symposium can be accepted without the Focus Group (or the Focus Group without the Symposium) depending on the strength of the proposal, number of proposals received and available times in the schedule.

OceansOnline proposals should be relevant to marine conservation communication and online tools and resources for marine conservation and marine science. Proposals for OceansOnline should select the “OceansOnline” category and sub-category of workshop, presentation or facilitated discussion.

OceansOnline workshops, whether geared toward students or professionals, have an educational/technical component. There will be two types of workshops – short workshops during certain session times of OceansOnline and workshops held before or after IMCC4. Workshops held during OceansOnline will be approximately 1.5 hours in length, and workshops held before or after IMCC4 can be any length, up to eight hours. These workshops can be held for up to two days. Pre-meeting workshops will require a separate fee for participants in addition to the congress registration fee to offset the additional costs of running the workshop offsite. Any special needs or equipment might incur additional costs. These will be communicated at the time of acceptance of the proposal. Please contact David Shiffman and Samantha Oester with any questions.

OceansOnline presentations will be 15 or 30 minutes in length and will be used to showcase online tools and resources. Presentations will be scheduled during certain sessions of OceansOnline.

OceansOnline facilitated discussions are inspired by the session format of the former ScienceOnline Oceans. Facilitated discussions will be led by the proposer(s). They will include an introduction to the topic and interactive discussion with the session attendees. Facilitated discussions will be one hour in length. For examples of previous discussions and inspiration, please see the ScienceOnline Oceans 2013 program.

*Since OceansOnline is one day, if more exceptional proposals are received than can fit in the program, some proposers may be asked to make their sessions part of the main IMCC4 program. OceansOnline proposals are the only exception to this rule.