EGU25 - Convener guidelines and rules

Thank you for your willingness to participate in the organization of the EGU General Assembly as a convener. Here we provide information to help you in all stages of proposing, organizing and convening a session. Information will be added to this page step-by-step as we approach the event. Make sure you read it carefully, as information may change from one year to another.

Conveners should pay specific attention to the following points:

The scientific programme of the EGU General Assembly is organized by the Programme Committee, including Chairs and Science Officers of different Programme Groups (PGs).
Conveners are invited to identify the PG Chair and the officers of the Programme Group their session belongs to and communicate with them whenever needed during the process of submitting and organizing a session.
Conveners are assisted by the staff of Copernicus Meetings, who informs them by email of actions needed with regard to the organization of their sessions. Conveners use the Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system to submit and organize their sessions (see below). Copernicus Meetings can be contacted at egu25@copernicus.org.
All members of a convener team must read the convener rules and guidelines, and agree to abide by the EGU code of conduct.

For a glimpse of what is expected from conveners during the EGU General Assembly, you are invited to watch this short video.

Useful links

Rules and general guidelines for conveners

The following rules for conveners and co-conveners apply during session proposal submission and session organization. Please be aware that not abiding by these rules can prevent programme finalization in the system:

When submitting a session proposal, keep in mind that a convener team consists of a minimum of 2 conveners (1 convener and 1 co-convener) and a maximum of 5 conveners (1 convener and 4 co-conveners) per session.
The member of the convener team who submits a session proposal agrees to become the point of contact for the session for session-specific communication with authors and conference organizers. This means that their email address would be listed alongside their name on the programme. Changes to the point of contact and/or additional points of contact can be appointed at a later stage.
One can have a maximum of 3 (co-)convenerships in total, with one as lead convener and a maximum of two as co-convener. One additional co-convenership for Union Symposia and Great Debates is allowed. Short Courses are not counted in the maximum number of convenerships allowed.
Convening a session and presenting their work at the EGU General Assembly is encouraged, but some rules apply:
1. Conveners and co-conveners cannot be solicited speakers in the session they convene.
2. In oral/poster sessions, (co-)conveners can be (co-)authors, but they cannot present an oral in the session they convene. They can however be poster presenting authors.
3. In PICO sessions, (co-)conveners can be (co-)authors and presenting authors in the session they convene.
4. A (co-)convener cannot be a session chairperson for the time block in which they are presenting.

In addition, we recommend conveners to carefully read the following points:

The EGU strongly encourages conveners to build their teams and organize their sessions considering and promoting under-represented demographics, in particular including: (i) multiple countries and institutes, (ii) different career stages, with particular attention to the participation of Early Career Scientists, as well as (iii) different genders and all other forms of diversity.
Lead conveners should check with all co-conveners that they agree to take part in the proposed session and to contribute to the session organization. All co-conveners should review the convener rules and guidelines.
The EGU Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Committee created the EDI session logo to be added to your session if your convener team fulfils the 3 criteria of diversity in gender, career stage, and geographic affiliation. An automatic check and assignment of this EDI logo is applied if all conveners have filled their user profile. If individual conveners have not filled their user profile, you will be asked to manually indicate whether the diversity criteria are fulfilled. We then kindly ask you to encourage your colleagues to complete their profile online. Please note that the EDI logo only appears on the listed session following session programme finalization.
Conveners do not automatically obtain discounts or waivers on the abstract processing charges or the registration fee. If eligible, they can apply to EGU participation support schemes when applications are open during the call-for-abstracts.
It is the responsibility of conveners to advertise their session. The EGU will advertise the conference and the entire programme, but not individual sessions. Email lists cannot be provided for data privacy reasons.
Conveners must comply with the EGU General Assembly rules of conduct.

Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system

Conveners use the tools of the Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system. For this purpose, they need to register to the system with a user account (ID and password). Only registered conveners can access the online system. The ID is a personal identification and cannot be shared with others.
Conveners can create or update their user account, including updating their email address, at: https://administrator.copernicus.org/personal_data.
Names and affiliations of conveners and co-conveners are listed in the programme for each session. Other personal details are only displayed if explicitly permitted by the conveners in their personal account. The person proposing the session agrees to be the session point of contact, with an email address visible for session related questions.
When submitting a session proposal, conveners and co-conveners are entered by first name, last name, and email. If these data match an existing user ID, they are connected to this ID. Conveners and co-conveners who already have an ID should be registered with the email address associated with that ID. This is to avoid multiple IDs for the same person and associated login problems.
Copernicus Meetings can be contacted at egu25@copernicus.org.

Current/upcoming tasks

Abstract submission & solicited abstract TANs (October to January)

During abstract submission, conveners are encouraged to promote their session. At any time, conveners can see the abstracts already submitted to their session by using the convener login link. We ask conveners to consider diversity in country, career stage, gender, and scientific approaches when encouraging colleagues to submit abstracts to their session.

Conveners can also plan to have a solicited abstract in their session, if relevant. Solicited presentations provide a means to highlight a specific overarching topic within a session. Solicited abstracts can be for oral, PICO, or poster presentations, but conveners should keep in mind that the type of presentation is not guaranteed until the meeting programme is finalized by the Programme Committee.

In order to allow enough room for the presentations coming from the public call for abstracts, some rules and guidelines apply.

A session can only have one solicited abstract per time block. Although numbers may vary from year to year, and according to the session format, a session needs around 15 to 22 abstracts for 1 oral time block.
(Co-)conveners cannot be a solicited speaker in a session they convene.
(Co-)conveners cannot be the presenting author, and are discouraged from being a co-author, in oral presentations in a session they convene.

Overall, considering all sessions in the programme of the General Assembly, authors are allowed, as first author, to submit either one regular abstract plus one solicited abstract, OR two solicited abstracts. An exception to this rule is however possible: authors can submit a second regular abstract if submitted to sessions led by the Education and Outreach Sessions (EOS) Programme Group. Under this exception, the maximum number of abstracts, including solicited abstracts, remains two.

Since the system limits authors to one regular abstract submitted as first author, authors who have a second abstract to submit (following the rules presented above) will need to provide a transaction number (TAN) when submitting their second abstract, whether this second abstract is a solicited or a regular (e.g. EOS) abstract.

In order to provide a TAN for the submission of a solicited abstract, conveners can generate one TAN per session directly through their session overview when logged in. This TAN must be sent directly to the author of the solicited abstract. The author can submit their second abstract through the system using this TAN. Additional TANs, if justified, can be provided by the Programme Group chair to the main convener of a session.

We suggest conveners to send their TAN as early as possible to their solicited author to avoid last-minute problems. Conveners are also encouraged to get in contact with their Programme Group chair for further clarifications, if needed.

Finally, please note that the final status of a 'solicited abstract' is only defined and displayed in the programme later, when conveners prepare the presentation selection during the SOIII phase. In that tool, conveners can then select the solicited presentation types for one solicited 10-, 20-, or 30-minute presentation per time block.

Support application assignment & rating (December)

SOI – abstract implementation & late abstracts (January)

Automatic cancellation of sessions without enough abstracts

Sessions with five (5) or fewer abstracts after the abstract deadline will automatically be cancelled and withdrawn from the programme. Authors of abstracts in these sessions will be given the opportunity to transfer their abstract to another session. Conveners of these cancelled and withdrawn sessions will have no more convening requirements that year, but are encouraged to resubmit their session proposal for the following year's General Assembly.

Review of abstracts

For the remaining sessions, the abstract implementation phase (SOI) will open straight away. Conveners are asked to review the abstracts originally submitted to their session and the abstracts that are suggested to be transferred to their session that are pertinent and closely related to the topic of their session. Reviewing abstracts should always be done by conveners since they are accountable and responsible. It is not allowed to use AI tools to review abstracts. While reviewing, conveners are not allowed to share any abstract content or upload abstract texts, in parts or entirely, into generative AI tools.

Abstracts should be clear, concise, and written in English, with correct spelling and good sentence structure. If any questions arise during the process, conveners should contact their Programme Group chair.

Late abstracts

During SOI conveners can upload late contributions from authors that have faced difficulties in submitting their abstract by the abstract submission deadline. Late abstract submissions can only be uploaded by the session conveners and are subsequently approved by the Programme Group chair. They have a strict deadline of 21 January 2025, 13:00 CET. Abstracts sent by authors to conveners at a later stage cannot be accepted.

Late abstract submissions have an increased abstract processing charge (APC), which needs to be paid by the authors. Payment can be processed following one of these options:

author's credit card (the author gives the convener the details of their credit card),
convener's credit card or PayPal (conveners should then ask directly to the author for reimbursement as they cannot be reimbursed by the EGU),
convener's request at the time of entering the late abstract in the system that the author be sent an invoice to pay the APC. In this case, a PDF invoice is automatically sent to the author by email and the late abstract will only be available for scheduling upon payment by the author.

As in regular submissions, first authors of late abstracts are also required to become EGU members before abstract submission.

Abstracts of public interest

In SOI, conveners may select a limited number of abstracts (maximum of three) in their session if they consider there are abstracts of great relevance to a broader scientific audience. The 'abstracts of public interest' check box allows conveners to select the abstracts to be highlighted to the general attendees of the meeting.

Session mergers

Sessions that have received few submissions or are very similar in scope can be merged. Conveners can merge sessions themselves in the SOI abstract implementation tool, after informing the Programme Group chair of their intention. Conveners should also inform the authors and give them time to request a transfer to a different session if the merge is not to their satisfaction.

When merging sessions, we recommend conveners follow this procedure:

Contact your Programme Group chair to discuss your merging plans (e.g. with which other session/s you would like to merge).
Ensure that all conveners of sessions that plan to be merged agree which session will be the base for the merge and which session/s will move into the merge (e.g. the session that received more abstracts could be used as the base session).
Agree on the updated title, description, and list of conveners of the new merged session.
Mark all abstracts in the session/s that will be moving to be transferred to the new merged session.
Accept all abstracts moved into the new merged session. This should result in one session that contains all the abstracts from the merged sessions. Those session descriptions will now be empty and can be 'withdrawn' to complete the merge.

It is recommended that the list of conveners, the session title, and the description of the session be adapted first (in the session modification tool) in the case of a session merger. This is to guarantee the best representation of the ideas and topics in the final session.

Previous tools/tasks

Session submission: general information

Public call-for-session proposals

Session proposals can be submitted during the public call-for-session, before the session submission deadline: 9 September 2024.

During the call-for-session proposals, EGU accepts proposals for the following sessions (check their respective guidelines for further information):

Regular scientific sessions (organized by a leading PG)
Inter- and Transdisciplinary sessions (ITS)
Education and Outreach sessions (EOS)
Union Symposia (US) and Great Debates (GDB)
Short courses (SC)

To submit a session proposal to the EGU General Assembly programme, please first have a look at the provisional skeleton programme implemented by the PG Chairs, where main topics may be listed.

When submitting a session, the following steps are required:

Submit your session proposal to one Programme Group (PG) only. This will be the leading PG of your session and the PG Chair will be responsible for the organization of your session in the programme. Programme Groups and their Chairs and Science Officers are listed here.
Define your session with a title and description, and short summary. Avoid submitting a session that is similar to sessions already suggested. Rather, contact the conveners or directly propose modifications to already suggested sessions if you would like to be involved. Please note that only the session title and short summary will be visible in the provisional programme, until session programme finalization in October.
Identify the lead convener and co-conveners (more information below).
Optionally, identify (co-)conveners as Early Career Scientists (ECS), if applicable.
Identify one of the conveners as being responsible for the Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) competition in your session.
Define keywords from the EGU keyword list. Keywords are used by PG Chairs to identify potential session similarities when finalizing the programme and during session scheduling. They are not used for online search tools. Typing in the keyword box will bring up suggestions from the EGU keyword list.
Indicate other Programme Groups to suggest potential co-organization with other PGs, if relevant (see below). This is a suggestion only; the final decision is taken by the PG Chairs when they finalize their programme.
Indicate whether your session is to be co-sponsored by a colleague science organization (see below).
Consider organizing a special issue about your session in one of the EGU's open-access journals. A subject-based selection is given in the proposal form for further information. Please take a look at the list of the EGU's topical journals as well as EGU's proceedings series Advances in Geosciences.

The Programme Group Chairs and officers will build their PG session programme from the sessions proposed.

Conveners will be informed of the status of the session they proposed by email in October. The Chair of the Programme Group where the session was proposed can accept the sessions as they were proposed, suggest changes for the sake of clarity of the final programme, and also request conveners of sessions that are similar to merge.

Convener guidelines and rules