ICOM2026 One-Talk, One Poster Rule!

Delegates may be the presenting author for one talk and one poster at ICOM2026. This rule applies to contributed sessions and invited talks in symposia (Does not apply to ECR Day, July 12, 2026). When setting up your symposium program, make sure that your speakers are aware of this and have not already committed to other sessions.

ICOM2026 does not provide funding to invited speakers and chairs who will need to cover their registration fee to the conference by the early bird deadline. Funding opportunities from third parties will be promoted on the conference website.

Submission Stream and Symposia

When submitting your abstract, you are required to select one of two Submission Streams:

• Early Career Researcher (ECR) Day: held on July 12, 2026, this is only for students or ECRs (defined as up to 7 active research years post-PhD). Additional registration costing applies.
• Symposia during ICOM2026

If you selected Symposia during ICOM2026 above, you will be required to select your symposium/symposia as follows:

• If you have an invited abstract, select the one (1) Symposium for which you received the invitation.
• If you are submitting a contributed abstract (i.e. not invited), please select between one (1) and three (3) symposia that you would like to be considered for.

See the Symposia page for a complete listing of the available symposia with abstracts.

Contribution Types

• Oral Talks: Oral presentations share your research with participants in your contributed session and include an opportunity to interact with the audience. Oral presentations demonstrate why your research is valid and matters for conservation and explain the outcomes or expected outcomes of your research. Oral presentations are presented in 10-minutes in length, followed by a 2-minute question and answer period with the audience.
• Lighting Talks & Poster: Like oral presentations, lighting talks aim to inform and convey to the audience why your research matters and to generate interest and conversation associated to your poster that will be presented during the assigned poster sessions. Speed presentations are conducted in 2-minutes with one (1) slide with static text/imagery (i.e. no animations). At the end of the session there is 20 minutes for breakout discussions at tables.
• Poster Presentations: Poster presentations are a visual and concise way to showcase conservation science and projects that provide opportunities to interact with a wide audience. Since a poster format is best when your material can easily be communicated visually, text should be limited to brief statements.

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Terms and Conditions

1. I will abide by the one-talk, one poster rule (see above)
2. If I have submitted an abstract for consideration at the ECR day, I verify that I meet the stipulated criteria that I am either a current full-time student, or that I am an early career researcher (defined as a person with up to 7 years of active research experience)
3. If I am chosen for an oral presentation (including a lightning talk + poster) for the ECR day (July 12, 2026) and/or the main ICOM2026 program (held July 13-16, 2026), I agree to register and pay for my registration by the end of the early bird registration deadline. I confirm that I understand that a lack of registration before the end of the early bird deadline may result in my invitation to give the oral presentation being revoked.
4. Authors of submitted abstracts shall be the sole and exclusive owners of the abstract and all associated intellectual property rights. Unless permission is specifically refused in the “Additional Information” tab during the abstract submission process, authors grant the ICOM2026 Organisers and their sponsors non-exclusive rights to publish, reproduce, distribute and store your abstract. Authors of submitted abstracts understand and agree that ICOM2026 Organisers nor their sponsors will not pay compensation for this license.
5. Authors of submitted abstracts guarantee that the abstract (and all associated intellectual property rights) is free of any third-party rights to the fullest extent permitted by law, including but not limited to, inventor’s rights of remuneration and any other ancillary rights.
6. If the author(s) have any commercial interests or associations that might pose a conflict of interest regarding this submission, they must be declared in the appropriate section of the “Additional Information” tab during abstract submission.
7. If accepted for presentation, the commercial interest or association must be declared on the slide immediately following the title slide (oral presentation) or in the lower right-hand corner of a lightning talk slide, and/or in a dedicated section on accepted posters.
8. By submitting an abstract, the submitting author confirms that they have approval from all the co-authors to submit and use the data in the abstract. If authorship is disputed, then ICOM2026 Organisers hold the right to reject or withdraw the abstract.
9. Authors of abstracts selected for an oral presentation (inclusive of lightning talks) will be informed about the type and date of the session and presentation guidelines will be provided.
10. Authors of abstracts selected for a poster presentation will be informed about the date of the poster session and will receive guidelines for their presentation and the poster specifications.
11. All accepted abstracts will be published in the digital abstract book. Note that after publication the abstracts cannot be modified.
12. Withdrawal policy: If authors wish to withdraw their abstracts, they are requested to send a letter via email to info@icom2026.org by May 1, 2026 (23:59 AEST). Consequently, the abstract will not be presented nor published.