Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations: GPCAP

Abstract

Research that has been sponsored by pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies is often presented at scientific and medical conferences. However, practices vary between organizations and it can be difficult to follow both individual conference requirements and good publication practice guidelines. Until now, no specific guidelines or recommendations have been available to describe best practice for conference presentations. This document was developed by a working group of publication professionals and uploaded to PeerJ Preprints for consultation prior to publication; an additional 67 medical societies, medical conference sites and conference companies were also asked to comment. The resulting recommendations aim to complement current good publication practice and authorship guidelines, outline the general principles of best practice for conference presentations and provide recommendations around authorship, contributorship, financial transparency, prior publication and copyright, to conference organizers, authors and industry professionals. While the authors of this document recognize that individual conference guidelines should be respected, they urge organizers to consider authorship criteria and data transparency when designing submission sites and setting parameters around word/character count and content for abstracts. It is also important to recognize that conference presentations have different limitations to full journal publications, for example, in the case of limited audiences that necessitate refocused abstracts, or where lead authors do not speak the local language, and these have been acknowledged accordingly. The authors also recognize the need for further clarity regarding copyright of previously published abstracts and have made recommendations to assist with best practice.

A guide to applying the Good Publication Practice 3 Guidelines in the Asia-Pacific region

“…The same authorship criteria used for journal publications should be used for congress 4 presentations. Furthermore, any prior presentation should always be acknowledged and a study identifier 5 included as a link between data generated from a common study [17]. 6…”

“…Authors and stakeholders should also enquire about whether encore presentations are accepted prior to 7 submitting an abstract to a conference [17]. Copyright of the original conference should also be respected 8 in some cases, the original conference organiser may require that statements are made acknowledging 9 the original abstract, and that permission has been sought for re-use.…”

“…Any encore presentation should also be consistent with the earlier presentation in its scope, but prepared 11 in a manner that is appropriate for the conference and an Asia-Pacific audience [17]. 12…”

“…Abstracts and Presentations guidelines [17], a maximum of 10 authors is recommended for an individual 5 publication. Developing a manuscript with contributions from more than 10 authors, while ensuring that 6 agreement is reached on the final content prior to submission, can be challenging to achieve.…”

“…• If republishing a translated version of a manuscript, appropriate permissions from the copyright holder (journal and/or authors), journal editors and authors must be sought prior to proceeding, and appropriate efforts made to verify the accuracy of any translation [17,18]. • The publication of Asia-Pacific regional or national data derived from global studies should be planned in advance to limit any delay and ensure timely dissemination of relevant data for patient care in the region.…”