Symposium submissions close 15th January 2018

Symposia should deal with early intervention topics in mental health. Symposia can be organized along the lines of content or methodology in the primary and secondary themes provided. Individual abstracts should include the purpose, methods, results and conclusions for each topic.

The recommended format is an introduction of the symposium by the chair, followed by four individual presentations with Q&A. Discussion time can be scheduled according to the organizers’ discretion (e.g., after individual talks, concentrated at the end of a session, or a mixture of the two approaches), and both talk length and how discussion will be organized should be specified as part of the proposal. Other formats will be considered, but proposals for other formats should include a clear rationale. Symposia sessions are typically 90 minutes. Symposia often benefit from a diversity of perspectives and institutional affiliations. Proposals from young investigators are encouraged.

The symposium organizer is listed as the chair of the symposium; additional co-chair and/or discussant is considered optional. All speakers are required to register for the meeting by 1st August 2018 in order to have the symposium listed in the printed program. Submitting a symposium proposal and/or speaking in a symposium does not prevent you from submitting an abstract for an oral presentation or poster presentation, however IEPA will not allow any encore presentations at the meeting. Organizers must ensure that all speakers are committed to participating in the symposium before submitting a proposal. If a symposium presentation has more than one author, it should be presented by the first author.

Proposals will be evaluated by the IEPA 11 Scientific Committee using a variety of criteria including scientific merit, timeliness, theoretical innovation and breadth, methodological innovation, lack of overlap with the regular program, and diversity of the speakers.

Individual authors who’s abstract was not accepted as part of a symposium session may re-submit their abstract as an oral or poster presentation. Oral abstracts will automatically be considered as posters if they are not accepted for presentation at the conference. The last day to submit an oral or poster abstract for presentation at the meeting is 19th March 2018.