Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations: GPCAP

Jackie Marchington,Rianne Stacey,Nina C. Kennard,Elizabeth Wager,Antonia Panayi,Cate Foster,Steve Banner,Mina Patel

doi:10.1186/s41073-019-0070-x

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.By following Good Practice for Conference s and Presentations: GPCAP recommendations, industry professionals, authors and conference organizers will improve consistency, transparency and integrity of publications submitted to conferences worldwide.

Highlights

Research that has been sponsored by commercial organizations is often presented at scientific and medical conferences
Some aspects of good practice in Good Publication Practice (GPP) [5] and in reporting guidelines such as CONSORT and PRISMA for Abstracts [6, 7] can be applied to conference presentations, the most widely cited recommendations on authorship from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) relate exclusively to publications in peer-reviewed journals [3]
Invitations to join the group were extended to potential authors known to have previously presented relevant research at meetings of the International Society of Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) or had a known interest in conference presentations

Summary

Introduction

Research that has been sponsored (see the ‘Note on terminology’ section for precise definitions of these terms) by commercial organizations (e.g. pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies) is often presented at scientific and medical conferences. Some aspects of good practice in Good Publication Practice (GPP) [5] and in reporting guidelines such as CONSORT and PRISMA for Abstracts [6, 7] can be applied to conference presentations, the most widely cited recommendations on authorship from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) relate exclusively to publications in peer-reviewed journals [3]. Building on the acceptance and recognition of the GPP guidelines (first published as GPP for Pharmaceutical Companies in 2003 [3], updated in 2010 [4] and most recently published as GPP3 in 2015 [5]), this article endeavours to extend their principles and to address challenges relating to the presentation of company-sponsored research at academic meetings These recommendations, on Good Practice for Conference Abstracts and Presentations (GPCAP), focus on company-sponsored research (see the ‘Note on terminology’ section). The aim of GPCAP is to provide guidance on good submission and presentation practice for scientific and medical congresses, addressing certain aspects where current publication guidelines are inadequate

Methods

Encore checklist

Findings

Discussion