Convener guidelines and rules 

Thank you for convening a session at the EGU General Assembly 2020. 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 (mid-October to late winter)
   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 increased processing charge for late abstracts (January)
   9. SOII – session tagging (January)
   10. SOIII – presentation selection (February)
   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 egu2020@copernicus.org.
• You will be asked to use the tools of the Copernicus Office Meeting Organizer online system for session proposal. For this purpose, you receive a user account (ID and password) during session proposal. If you have an account from before, please use the same email address as linked to the user account to avoid double registration (the user account can be updated at your personal data.
• 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 can reach you in case of questions or last-minute changes.
• Conveners do not get discounts on abstract processing charges or the registration fee. But you are invited to our conveners' party.

2. Presentation guidelines

Scientific presentations at the EGU General Assembly

The EGU General Assembly facilitates the presentation of scientific results in the form of poster presentations, oral presentations, and PICOs. From the perspective of the EGU, all scientific presentations at its General Assembly have equal status: there is no distinction regarding the standing of oral, poster, or PICO presentations. 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. (Co)-conveners cannot be the presenting author, and are discouraged from being a co-author, in oral presentations in a session they convene.

One-abstract rule and EGU membership

First authors are required to be 2020 EGU member in order to submit abstracts to the EGU General Assembly 2020. 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 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.
• Identify the lead conveners and co-conveners (more information below).
• Optionally, identify (co-)conveners as early career scientists (ECS).
• Select whether your session is proposed to be a PICO session.
• Only put your session proposal into one programme group.
• Avoid submitting session proposals that are similar to sessions already suggested.
• Define keywords from the EGU General Assembly 2020 keywords list. The keywords are used to identify potential session similarity, 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 ITS' sub-programme groups.
• Indicate other programme groups for co-organization.
• Indicate whether your session is to be co-sponsored by a colleague science organization. Please define 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.
• 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.

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

• 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.
• 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 guideline is a maximum of 3 (co-)convenerships 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.

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 session 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.

Session co-sponsoring by colleague science organizations
The EGU encourages session endorsement 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) endorsement is reciprocal, involving endorsement of 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 endorsement is intended for colleague scientific organizations and does not imply funding. An endorsing organization should furthermore not influence the work of the conveners or the content of the session. Programme group chairs decide on the endorsement 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.

3e. Session modification (mid-October to late winter)

The session modification tool enables you to modify the title as well as the description of your session as soon as the session programme is launched (mid-October). Session details can be modified until the programme is published. Thereafter, you can add public information which will be visible in the programme. Furthermore, this tool provides you with up-to-date information and statistics about the contributions of your session during the whole period of the session and programme organization. This web interface is also the starting point for other tools mentioned below. Please access the session programme and monitor your session. You are kindly asked to log in by using the convener login link.

The lead convener can make changes to the co-convener team (including/deleting 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 is there 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 EGU journals, but do not allow advertisement of special issues with other publishers.

We encourage the use of gender-neutral language in all communications. Some examples are at this link https://www.colorado.edu/cisc/resources/trans-queer/pronouns from the University of Colorado.

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. Our guideline is 1 solicited abstract per session. Solicited abstracts can be for oral, PICO or poster presentations, but please note that orals are not guaranteed. 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. For PICO sessions, the presentation request upon submission is fixed to PICO. For non-PICO sessions, authors are asked to select an oral or poster preference.

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. Solicited abstracts can be for poster, PICO, or oral presentations. Keep in mind that an invited abstract is not guaranteed an oral presentation. 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 his/her 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 five (5) or less abstracts after the abstract deadline will automatically be cancelled. Authors of abstracts in withdrawn sessions will be given the opportunity to send 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 24 January 2020, 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
Please note that late contributions uploaded by you require approval by the programme group chair in the subsequent programme committee tools. Late abstracts have a strict deadline which is the end date of the SOI tool. Abstracts sent by authors at a later stage cannot be accepted.

Late contributions uploaded by conveners have an increased abstract processing charge (APC) 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 in order to submit an abstract; conveners are also asked to settle the first author's EGU membership upon uploading of late contributions. The payment options are the same as for the APC.

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 (January)

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. 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 (February)

The programme committee will schedule your session and you will be informed by email when your time is assigned. 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:

• Subdivide the abstracts into oral and poster presentations. For PICO sessions, the abstracts are already marked as PICO.
• Define the ordering of the talks and posters or PICO presentations.
• Assign solicited abstracts (see below). You should aim for no more than one solicited presentation per session. The maximum number of solicited oral presentations is one per oral time block.
• Define the length of each talk. Oral and solicited oral presentations are 15 minutes including 3 minutes for questions. Division medal lectures that are part of a session are 60 minutes (including time for awarding the medal and for questions). Arne Richter Award for Outstanding Early Career Scientists lectures are 30 minutes (including time for an introduction and for questions). Division outstanding Early Career Scientist Award lectures are 15 or 30 minutes (including introduction and question time).
• For each oral block, as a guideline, include at least two and preferably three early career scientist abstracts marked with "ECS".
• PICO sessions can have one (1) 10-minute introduction for each time block. The rest of the PICO abstracts will automatically be selected as 2-minute oral presentations.
• Define at least two chairpersons for every oral, poster, or PICO 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. (Co-)conveners cannot be the presenting author, and are discouraged from being a co-author, in oral presentations in a session they 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 oral, poster, or PICO abstracts when you compile your final programme (see SOIII).
• You should aim for no more than one solicited presentation per session. Programme group chairs decide on whether an exception can be made to have more than one solicited presentation per session, with the programme committee chair mediating in any exceptional cases.
• A solicited oral presentation is 15 minutes (including questions).
• Authors of solicited abstracts do not receive discounted abstract processing charges, registration fees, or travel reimbursement.

The main time blocks of the General Assembly:

Time blocks	Presentations
TB1	08:30–10:15
TB2	10:45–12:30
TB3	14:00–15:45
TB4	16:15–18:00
TB5	18:00–19:00
TB6	19:00–20:00