Convener guidelines and rules 

Thank you for convening a session at the EGU General Assembly 2022. Here we provide information to help you in all stages of the convening process.

1. Practical information
2. Presentation guidelines
3. Convener tasks and convener tools
   1. Session submission
   2. Convener teams and convenerships
   3. Session co-organization and co-sponsoring
   4. Advertise your session to your scientific community
   5. Session modification
   6. Abstract submission and TAN numbers for solicited abstracts (mid-October to January)
   7. Support application assignment & rating (late December)
   8. SOI – abstract implementation and processing charge for late abstracts
   9. SOII – session tagging
   10. SOIII – presentation selection
   11. The weeks before the conference and last-minute duties
   12. At the conference

1. Practical information

• Conveners and co-conveners are assisted by the staff of Copernicus Meetings. Copernicus Meetings will inform you about all deadlines and milestones with regard to the organization of your session. Copernicus Meetings can be contacted at egu22@copernicus.org.
• You will be asked to use the tools of the Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system. For this purpose, you receive a user account (ID and password). If you already have a Copernicus account, please use the same email address as linked to the user account to avoid double registration (you can update your personal data on your user account by connecting to Copernicus Office).
• Only registered conveners can access the online system. Your ID should not be shared with others.
• All links and related instructions will be given by email.
• Please note that the programme lists the names of conveners and co-conveners for each session as well as their affiliation(s). Here, personal details such as telephone number and email are only displayed if permitted by the user. To do this, please log in to your personal data and mark the respective public directory entries. The Programme Committee strongly recommends displaying at least your email information so authors and programme group chairs can reach you in case of questions or last-minute changes.
• Conveners do not obtain discounts on abstract processing charges or the registration fee.

2. Presentation guidelines

Scientific presentations at the EGU General Assembly

The EGU General Assembly facilitates the presentation of scientific results in the form of short oral presentations in hybrid sessions. From the perspective of the EGU, all scientific presentations at its General Assembly have equal status. The EGU's statement can be found here.

Solicited presentations and convener talks

Authors (first and co-authors) cannot have a solicited presentation in a session they (co-)convene.

One-abstract rule and EGU membership

First authors are required to be 2022 EGU members in order to submit abstracts to EGU22. Authors are allowed to submit either one regular abstract plus one abstract solicited by a convener, or two solicited abstracts, as first author. A second regular abstract can be submitted to a session led by the Education and Outreach Sessions (EOS) programme group (the maximum number of abstracts, including solicited abstracts, remains two). Possible submissions for first authors are the following:

• 1 regular + 1 solicited abstract;
• or 2 solicited abstracts;
• or 1 regular or solicited abstract + 1 abstract in EOS-led sessions (regular or solicited).

3. Convener tasks and convener tools

3a. Session submission

Session proposals can be submitted during the public call-for-sessions. When submitting a session, the following steps are required.

• Define your session with a title and a short description (200–2500 characters).
• Identify the lead conveners and co-conveners (more information below).
• Optionally, identify (co-)conveners as Early Career Scientists (ECS).
• Identify one of the conveners as being responsible for the Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) competition in your session.
• Submit your session proposal to one programme group only.
• Avoid submitting session proposals that are similar to sessions already suggested. Rather, you can contact conveners of suggested sessions or directly propose modifications to already suggested sessions if you would like to be involved.
• Define keywords from the EGU22 keywords list. The keywords are used to identify potential session similarities, during building of the session programme and during session scheduling. The main target is inter-programme group overlaps. Keywords are not used to characterize sessions for online search tools.
• Indicate whether your session might be considered for Inter- and Transdisciplinary Sessions (ITS). If yes, please read the ITS guidelines and select one of the ITS' sub-programme groups.
• Indicate other programme groups for potential co-organization.
• Indicate whether your session is to be co-sponsored by a colleague science organization. Please state whether this co-sponsorship's status is proposed or approved by the colleague organization.
• 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.
• Respect the session submission deadline. Last-minute submissions are difficult to handle in our large programme.

The programme group chair and officers build the session programme from the session proposals. You will be informed of acceptance of your session by email. The programme group chair can also suggest proposed sessions that are similar to merge.

Apart from regular scientific sessions, during the call-for-sessions we accept proposals for the following.

• Short courses
• Union Symposia and Great Debates
• Inter- and Transdisciplinary Sessions

3b. Convener teams and convenerships

• 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, (iii) different genders and all other forms of diversity, and (iv) diverse scientific approaches. Sessions that fulfil the criteria on diversity defined by the EGU Equality, Diversion and Inclusion (EDI) Working Group will be able to display the EDI logo on the programme.
• A convener team consists of a minimum of 2 active conveners (1 convener and 1 co-convener) and a maximum of 5 conveners (1 convener and 4 co-conveners) per session.
• Our rule is a maximum of 3 (co-)convenerships in total, with one as lead convener. One additional (co-)convenership for Union Symposia and Great Debates is allowed (that is, a maximum of 4). Short Courses are exempted from the guideline on the number of convenerships. Please check with all co-conveners that they agree to take part in the proposed session.
• Every session require at least two conveners to be onsite in Vienna. If this cannot be guaranteed, two chairpersons must be assigned (see point 3j) and be available onsite to guide the session.

3c. Session co-organization and co-sponsoring

Session co-organizing by programme groups
Conveners can suggest other programme groups to co-organize their session on submission. The chair of the programme group hosting the session is responsible for sending the invitations for co-organization to other programme groups. Acceptance of these suggestions lies with the receiving programme group chairs. Co-organized sessions are supposed to be truly multi-disciplinary in nature and to entail active involvement (through convenership) of members identifying with all co-organizing programme groups/divisions.

Session co-sponsoring by colleague science organizations
The EGU encourages session co-sponsoring by other colleague organizations as a means of strengthening ties and encouraging collaboration. Co-sponsoring organizations will be listed in the session subtitle (automatically set by the system). Session co-sponsoring is expected to follow these guidelines: (i) co-sponsoring is reciprocal, involving sessions at meetings of both partners. (ii) The session has conveners from both organizations. (iii) The colleague organization agrees to session co-sponsoring. (iv) Session co-sponsoring is intended for colleague scientific organizations and does not imply funding. A co-sponsoring organization should furthermore not influence the work of the conveners or the content of the session. Programme group chairs decide on co-sponsoring of a session within their respective programme group. On session submission you will be asked to indicate whether co-sponsoring is a wish of or already approved by the colleague science organization.

3d. Advertise your session to your scientific community

It is the responsibility of conveners to advertise their session. The EGU and Copernicus will advertise the conference and the entire programme, but not individual sessions. Email lists cannot be provided for data privacy reasons.

3e. Session modification

The session modification tool enables you to modify the title as well as the description of your session during the Session Organization stages (tools SOI and SOII). If there is an urgent change in the session title or description beforehand, conveners must directly contact their programme group chair or scientific officer to implement the requested changes. Once the programme is published, you can add public information on the session that will be visible in the programme. The session modification tool also provides you with up-to-date information and statistics about the contributions to your session during the whole period of the Session and Programme Organization. This web interface is the starting point for the other tools mentioned below. You can access the session programme and monitor your session after logging in by using the convener login link.

The lead convener can make changes to the co-convener team (adding/removing co-conveners, changing the order of co-conveners) using the session modification tool until the programme is published. Once the programme is published, it will no longer be possible to make changes to the co-convener listing.

The session modification tool also provides a convener mail tool. This mail tool allows you to communicate session-relevant items to the authors of your session, for example updates to the schedule or a session social event. Please communicate only EGU-related topics. We encourage announcements of special issues in the EGU's topical journals or the EGU's proceedings series Advances in Geosciences, but do not allow advertisement of special issues with other publishers.

We encourage the use of gender-neutral language in all communications. Some examples can be found in this guide and related blog post.

3f. Abstract submission and TAN numbers for solicited abstracts (mid-October to January)

During abstract submission you will see the abstracts submitted to your session when using the convener login link at your session (session overview). Solicited presentations provide a means to highlight a specific topic within a session. Solicited authors can be added in the session modification tool during the call for abstracts period and will be shown as additional information to the session description. Our guideline is 1 solicited abstract per session. We ask conveners to consider diversity in country, career stage, gender, and scientific approaches when soliciting a presenter and when encouraging colleagues to submit abstracts to their session.

Authors are allowed as first author to submit either one regular abstract plus one abstract solicited by a convener, or two solicited abstracts. A second regular abstract can be submitted to sessions led by the Education and Outreach Sessions (EOS) programme group (the maximum number of abstracts, including solicited abstracts, remains two). Since the system limits submissions to one, authors will need to provide a transaction number (TAN) when submitting their second abstract, whether this second abstract is the solicited or regular one. TANs have to be provided by the convener of the session of the solicited abstract. That means, you can generate 1 TAN for your session through your session overview, send an email to your solicited author naming this TAN, and keep track of TAN assignment and usage. We suggest sending the TAN as early as possible to your solicited author to avoid last-minute problems. If you are the convener of session X and your solicited author submits first their regular abstract to session Y and then the solicited abstract to your session X, the TAN of your session X is actually used for the submission to session X. However, if the author submits first their solicited abstract to your session X (system does not ask for a TAN yet) and then submit their regular abstract to session Y, the system will ask at session Y for a TAN since it is the second abstract. Then, the author must use the TAN obtained from you for session X at session Y and must not ask the convener of session Y for a TAN. Please note that the actual abstract status solicited will be defined later in the process during presentation selection (SOIII).

Our guideline is 1 solicited abstract per session. If you expect a large number of submissions to your session, you can ask your programme group chair for another TAN, but please note that the number of TAN available per programme group is limited. The actual selection of oral presentations and solicited presentations takes place during SOIII – presentation selection.

3g. Support application assignment & rating (late December)

During the initial period of the abstract submission, authors are able to submit their contributions together with a support application. You are kindly asked to rate those applications in order to provide the support selection committee with your preferences for whom should be granted financial support. Furthermore, you can upload additional contributions. Please note that applications without a convener rating and/or without payment cannot be considered.

Please rate the applications (a) by the quality of the science, as well as (b) by the quality of the abstract. In order to emphasize your decision, you can add a comment to each rated application. You can also mark one abstract of your session as being essential. This will be shown in all the following ranking and decision forms in addition to the rating value. Conveners are not allowed to rate or comment on support applications in which they are involved as a co-author. These applications must be handled either by another session convener or directly by the programme group chair. Your programme group chair will then provide a ranking of all ratings within their programme group to the support selection committee.

The support selection committee will consider this ranking together with your rating and other priority factors. The above restrictions/priorities will mean that few, perhaps even no, applicants from certain sessions will receive support and that sometimes supported participants may not be those most highly rated on scientific grounds.

All applicants will be informed about the final decision of the selection committee. Independent of a positive or negative decision, authors are requested to confirm their participation in the meeting by the given deadline. Abstracts without a participation confirmation will be withdrawn automatically.

3h. SOI – abstract implementation and increased processing charge for late abstracts (January)

Automatic cancellation of small sessions
Sessions with four (4) or less abstracts after the abstract deadline will automatically be cancelled. Authors of abstracts in withdrawn sessions will be given the opportunity to transfer their abstract to another session.

SOI tasks
During the abstract implementation phase, you are asked to review abstracts originally submitted to your session, those which are suggested to be transferred to your session, as well as abstracts without an assignment. In addition, you may upload late contributions by the strict deadline of 26 January 2022, 13:00 CET. Please note the guidelines for abstract submission. The outcome of this tool is the final list of active contributions to be scheduled in your session.

Late abstracts
Late abstracts have a strict deadline of 26 January 2022, 13:00 CET. Abstracts sent by authors at a later stage cannot be accepted.

Late contributions uploaded by conveners have the same abstract processing charge (APC) as regular abstracts (€45) and also need to be paid. Payment is by these options: (1) author's credit card (the author gives the convener the details), (ii) convener's credit card (conveners cannot be reimbursed by the EGU), or (iii) the convener may request the author to pay the APC. In the latter case, a PDF invoice is sent to the author by email. First authors are required to become EGU members before submitting a late abstract.

Abstracts of public interest
In SOI, conveners have the opportunity to select 3–5% of abstracts in their session of greatest relevance to a broad audience. The abstracts of public interest check box allows you to select abstracts to be highlighted to the public.

Session mergers
Sessions that 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 authors and giving them some time to request a transfer to a different session, please follow this procedure:

1. Discuss between all conveners which session is going to be used as the basis for the new session.
2. Update the title, abstract, and list of conveners of the base session.
3. Mark all abstracts in the other session for movement into the new session.
4. Accept all those abstracts in the new session. The result is that the base session for the merge now contains the abstracts of both sessions, while the other session contains no abstracts and can be withdrawn, i.e. removed, in the next stage.

It is recommended that the convener list, session title, and description be adapted (in the session modification tool) in the case of a session merge. This is to guarantee the best representation of the ideas, topics, and targeted communities.

3i. SOII – session tagging

During session tagging, you are asked to provide the programme committee with your scheduling requests. These may include requests for no-overlap, back-to-back scheduling, a specific lecture room size, or any other information that you consider to be useful. Conveners are also asked to estimate the potential number of participants. Missing information from the SOI or SOII tools will be filled in by the programme committee.

The programme committee will schedule your session in terms of day, room, and time. Thereafter, authors will receive a letter of acceptance/rejection by email.

Publishing proceedings of special issues in EGU journals
Please consider a publication of your session's proceedings in the EGU's open-access journal Advances in Geosciences or as special issue in one of the EGU's thematic open-access journals. You can indicate your interest during session proposal or later in SOII – session tagging. The editorial support team of Copernicus Publications will be informed and will contact you for further processing.

3j. SOIII – presentation selection

The programme committee will schedule your session and you will be informed by email of the time and room assigned to your session. EGU strongly encourages conveners to 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, (iii) different genders and all other forms of diversity, and (iv) diverse scientific approaches. In SOIII you will be asked to do the following:

• Depending on the number of presentations in your session, you should assign a time slot of 5, 6, or 7 minutes per presentation. All presentations in your session (except solicited presentations, see below) should have the same length of time slot (i.e., all presentations in your sessions should be either 5, 6, or 7 minutes long - including time for questions and changeover).
• You cannot schedule presentations for more than the time block(s) assigned to your session. You can schedule presentations for less than that time, with the remainder set aside for discussion.
• Define the ordering of the presentations.
• Assign solicited abstracts (see below). You should aim for no more than one solicited presentation per time block. You can (but are not obliged to) attribute a 10-minute time slot to one solicited presentation per full time block. Sessions that have been attributed a half time block cannot schedule a 10-minute solicited oral presentation.
• Define at least two chairpersons for every time block, who will be present in-person at the conference. If none of the conveners aim to be present in-person, you can appoint a chairperson who is not a convener.
• Define at least two chairpersons for every time block.

Your selections will generate a draft session programme with a subdivision of the different times for the presentations. Missing information from SOIII will be filled in by the programme committee. All authors will receive their letter of schedule by email, mentioning the actual time and location of their presentation.

Information on solicited abstracts
Solicited submissions are those abstracts that you would like to particularly highlight in your session. Please note the following:

• Authors (first and co-authors) cannot have a solicited presentation in a session they (co-)convene.
• You can indicate the names of solicited presenter(s) in the description of your session (solicited presenters: Eugene G. Underwood, EugeneG@Under.com; Janice E. Smith, janice@smith.com). This can be done by using the tool session modification with access through the convener login link in the session programme.
• You can assign the status of "solicited" to abstracts when you compile your final programme (see SOIII).
• You should aim for no more than one solicited presentation per time block. Programme group chairs decide on whether an exception can be made to have more than one solicited presentation per time block, with the programme committee chair mediating in any exceptional cases.
• Authors of solicited abstracts do not receive discounted abstract processing charges, registration fees, or travel reimbursement.

The main time blocks of the General Assembly are:

3k. The weeks before the conference and last-minute duties

Please monitor your session through the session modification tool up to the scheduled presentation time. In particular, we ask you to do the following:

• Select two chairpersons per session block .
• Nominate at least three judges per presentation participating in the OSPP contest.
• Please check the last-minute duties below.

Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) Contest
In the session dashboard, please check if any presenters participate in the OSPP contest. For each participating presentation , at least three judges need to be identified by the session conveners via the linked OSPP nominator tool. You can either choose volunteers from the list of available judges, nominate chairs or conveners of the session, or add colleagues as judges (after their approval to ensure that they know about their duties and that they will attend EGU). Judges are not allowed to be co-authors of the abstract to be evaluated, need to have earned a PhD or equivalent, and are not allowed to participate in the OSPP contest themselves.

Daily programme
If you have any modifications in your session programme after uploading the final meeting programme, please forward this information directly to egu22@copernicus.org. These changes will be included in the daily programme of each lecture room to be displayed on-site. Changes to the on-site daily programme are possible until 10 May.

Late withdrawals and no-shows
We kindly ask authors to withdraw abstracts as early as possible when they realize they will not be able to present the work.

No-shows are monitored at presentation time for all sessions. If an abstract was not presented and not withdrawn, or withdrawn after the scheduled presentation, and no prior warning was given to the conveners, the abstract will be withdrawn from the online programme. The title will be marked with "withdrawn after no-show".

Last-minute duties

1. Session modification: log in to your session dashboard. Here, you can edit your chairpersons, add public information to your session to be shown to the people reading the online programme, and find the mailing list of your corresponding authors for final information you would like to provide.
2. Contact your authors and chairpersons by email. Please make sure that they are all attending. Let them know of any planned events associated with your session.
3. Define judges for the Outstanding Student and PhD candidate Presentation (OSPP) contest. Judges can access their judge forms online through the OSPP judge dashboard.

3l. At the conference

1. Please check that the chairpersons for your session are in place.
2. Make sure to keep sessions on time. All oral presentation times include the time for questions and change-over to the next speaker.
3. Keep in mind that the fully-hybrid session approach involves speakers and audience split in virtual and on-site groups each. Virtual speakers need the same attention than on-site speakers in the room and questions can come from on-site attendees as well as virtual attedees through the Zoom chat.
4. Ensure that speakers always locate at the lectern in order to catch their video and to use the lectern microphone as virtual attendees in Zoom could otherwise not follow the session. For attendees in the room, the microphone helps difficult-of-hearing. Use your chairperson microphone at your desk when moderating the session. Ask the audience to use a microphone when asking questions or repeat their questions through your microphone. Large rooms have mounted microphones where people can queue by the end of the presentation.
5. All lecture rooms have a wireless presenter device at the lectern with a virtual pointer. Speakers are obliged to point on their presentation on the lectern monitor in order to transmit this pointing signal both to the projected screen in the room as well as to the Zoom meeting for virtual attendees.
6. More relevant tips can be found in the presenter guidelines.