HOW TO SUCCESSFULLY SUBMIT A PROPOSAL

Good self-assessment

Topics that you are not one hundred percent comfortable with should rather not be submitted. Experimentalists should be aware that familiarisation with a new field entails additional work: special knowledge and experience should already be available when submitting a paper.

Identify interesting topics

Already during the preliminary considerations, it is helpful to put oneself in the role of the audience:  What about the topicality of the subject? Is the presentation of particular importance?

Choose a clear focus

“You can’t please everyone and everything” is a well-known wisdom. It is advisable to stand out from the unattractive uniformity and consciously decide on a targeted set of topics – even if this means that other topics cannot be taken into account.

Write a meaningful abstract

A short abstract of about 500 characters is required for the application. That does not sound much – which is precisely why you should put a lot of effort into the wording. A mere list of contents has no place in an abstract. The reader must be able to follow the train of thought. Therefore, the presentation should be described in your own words, always with the audience in mind: What added value will they get out of it? What solutions will help them? When writing the abstract, you can also fall back on the well-known W-questions. With a bit of system, these can help you to grasp the essential aspects of the presentation. What is the topic? Which products will be considered? Why do I want to talk about this topic and how do I want to give the talk?

Name the target group

You should also not lose sight of the level of the audience when designing the content of your talk: You have the choice to submit your talk for different target groups, including beginners, advanced and professionals. The choice of the respective category should be well considered because the evaluators will also judge a presentation for experts differently than a presentation for beginners.

Create practical relevance

An important rule is the more practical relevance, the better – for example, experience, and project reports, tips & tricks as well as best practices are sought after. The audience will be grateful for concrete insights into project activities:  What considerations, requirements and obstacles were the project members confronted with? How did they decide and why? Tips & tricks should be presented.

The title of the presentation

Once the content of the presentation has been decided, the search for a strong presentation title begins. Catchy titles, where the topic is obvious at first glance, help both the programme committee and the participants in the selection process. The title should not exceed 80 characters (including spaces).

Submit several proposals

Each speaker is free to submit several proposals. To make the effort worthwhile, the quality criteria mentioned here should be considered for each submission. In this way, submitters not only statistically increase their chance of being accepted.

Be patient

If all points are taken into account and the rejection still arrives, then the motto is: do not give up immediately! In the end, a bit of luck is always needed for an acceptance. You are welcome to try it again next year.

We wish you good luck with your submission and look forward to meeting you in Berlin!