These easy-to-follow steps are aimed as a guide in a bid to help maximise and amplify key points, information and outcomes. We hope this information will help.
Consider using the abstract mentor programme outlined below if you think you'll need some extra help.
The deadline for submitting your abstract has been extended until 23.59 BST on 4 October 2022.
ALL ABSTRACTS MUST BE SUBMITTED BY THE DEADLINE
ALL ABSTRACTS MUST BE SUBMITTED ONLINE
ALL ABSTRACTS MUST BE NO MORE THAN 300 WORDS AND IN ENGLISH
Before you write your abstract, you'll need to decide what kind of session you'd like it to be considered for. There are different formats for different session types. You can read guidance that's specific to each type of abstract in the menu at the bottom of the page.
The following guidance applies to all abstract types:
Choose a snappy but descriptive title
The title must not be too long, but it is important that you include such things as who, what, when, where and how.
Seek feedback
Once you have written your abstract, show it to some of your colleagues, and also to some family or friends outside of the field to see if they can understand it easily. Correcting mistakes at this stage gives your abstract a better chance of being accepted.
Dos and Don'ts
Do:
Avoid statements such as ‘work in progress’ or ‘results will be discussed’
Ensure that the abstract is easy to read and understandable for the reviewer
Avoid acronyms and slang where possible
Speak of something new or innovative
Make sure your topic is important for a variety of audiences
Try and limit your presentation to address one or two key ideas only
Don't:
Submit an abstract that does not offer anything new
Include preliminary data and inaccurate facts
Submit an abstract important to a narrow audience only
Use unclear language or bulky sentences
Exceed 300 words
Submit your abstract
Once you have written and checked your abstract, you can save it in your online account. You must actually submit your abstract before the deadline - simply saving it is not enough.
The deadline for abstract submissions is 4 October 2022, but we strongly urge you to submit your work well before this deadline and not to leave it until the last moment.
What happens next?
Once you have submitted your abstract you will receive an email to confirm that your abstract has been received. By 31 December 2022, you will be notified whether your abstract has been successful or not.
The 'rule of one'
HR23 operates a ‘rule of one’. This means that a conference delegate may present only one paper during the conference. You can submit multiple abstracts, but only one will be accepted.
We wish you success with your abstract writing!
An oral presentation is the standard conference presentation.
Your abstract may be selected as part of a themed major or concurrent session. You may be considered for a standard presentation of maximum 12 minutes or a shorter presentation of maximum seven minutes. You may have PowerPoint projection available to you for your presentation or you may be a participant in a roundtable discussion. We will let you know the format of the session when we accept your abstract.
There is no set way to lay out an oral abstract, but you might like to consider using one of the following formats for ease:
Here is an example of an effective abstract:
TYPE: Oral
TRACK: Practice
AUTHORS: Mr Joe Bloggs
TITLE: Mothers helping mothers: Innovative role for families in harm reduction, China
ABSTRACT:
------
Issue -
One of the major approaches to dealing with injecting drug users (IDUs) in China has been detoxification/rehabilitation centres. Upon leaving these centres, most IDUs return to a community that does not readily welcome or accept them. Problems with reintegration into the community combined with distrust from their own families can push former drug users to socialize with their former IDU friends and return to injecting and sharing needles.
Setting -
Gejiu City is a major route for drug trafficking in Yunnan Province, China. In 2008, the HIV prevalence among IDUs in Gejiu was 68.5%.
Project -
With funding support from USAID, FHI/China in late 2006 pioneered a new approach: the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention implemented by the Green Garden IDU project in Gejiu. Two volunteer mothers joined the project to help their own children and to change other parents’ attitudes toward IDU interventions. Many IDUs’ families initially ignored the volunteer mothers’ home visits, until the mothers invited them to participate in drop-in centre activities intended to help poor IDU families. These efforts changed attitudes, and more IDUs and their parents began to become involved in activities organised by the mothers on HIV prevention, care and support; harm reduction and MMT promotion; home visits for IDU families; stigma and discrimination reduction activities for community members; and job searching for former drug users.
Outcome -
Between September 2009 and October 2012, the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention reached 318 IDUs through home visits, and 1,612 community members. An IDU survey in Gejiu in 2010 revealed that IDUs who received home visits reported decreased needle sharing (87.7% never shared needles, 23.1% shared in the past 6 months, and 18.8% in the past month). This model can be an innovative approach to harm reduction in Asian cultures where family ties are strong.
Posters are ideal for current projects which are either at the proposal stage or are work in progress; for data best displayed visually and for those whose English may not be quite good enough for an oral presentation.
At the conference, all poster presenters are given a large pinboard or equivalent presentation opportunity to put up material describing their work for one day. New for HR23, all poster presenters will have the option to record a short video of themselves talking about their poster and this video will be uploaded to the conference app.
Please note that scholarship applications cannot be made by those submitting poster abstracts.
There is no set way to lay out a poster abstract, but you might like to consider using one of the following formats for ease:
Here is an example of an effective abstract:
TYPE: Poster
TRACK: Practice
AUTHORS: Mr Joe Bloggs
TITLE: Mothers helping mothers: Innovative role for families in harm reduction, China
ABSTRACT:
------
Issue -
One of the major approaches to dealing with injecting drug users (IDUs) in China has been detoxification/rehabilitation centres. Upon leaving these centres, most IDUs return to a community that does not readily welcome or accept them. Problems with reintegration into the community combined with distrust from their own families can push former drug users to socialize with their former IDU friends and return to injecting and sharing needles.
Setting -
Gejiu City is a major route for drug trafficking in Yunnan Province, China. In 2008, the HIV prevalence among IDUs in Gejiu was 68.5%.
Project -
With funding support from USAID, FHI/China in late 2006 pioneered a new approach: the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention implemented by the Green Garden IDU project in Gejiu. Two volunteer mothers joined the project to help their own children and to change other parents’ attitudes toward IDU interventions. Many IDUs’ families initially ignored the volunteer mothers’ home visits, until the mothers invited them to participate in drop-in centre activities intended to help poor IDU families. These efforts changed attitudes, and more IDUs and their parents began to become involved in activities organised by the mothers on HIV prevention, care and support; harm reduction and MMT promotion; home visits for IDU families; stigma and discrimination reduction activities for community members; and job searching for former drug users.
Outcome -
Between September 2009 and October 2012, the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention reached 318 IDUs through home visits, and 1,612 community members. An IDU survey in Gejiu in 2010 revealed that IDUs who received home visits reported decreased needle sharing (87.7% never shared needles, 23.1% shared in the past 6 months, and 18.8% in the past month). This model can be an innovative approach to harm reduction in Asian cultures where family ties are strong.
The Dialogue Space is designed to be an interactive space where people can discuss concepts and learn from each other’s experiences. Presentations should be short (maximum 10 minutes) and should stimulate feedback, discussion and debate. There is no PowerPoint or screen in the Dialogue Space.
There are very few Dialogue Space slots available. Abstracts that do not fit this specification will not be considered.
Please note that scholarship applications cannot be made by those submitting Dialogue Space abstracts.
For Dialogue Space abstracts, the online submission system will offer you three text boxes with the following headings:
Issue for discussion
Use this text box to talk about the topic that you'd like to bring to the Dialogue Space. Try to make your topic novel and suitable for discussion in a group.
Your experience of the issue
Use this heading to talk about what makes you qualified to discuss this topic - what experience have you had and what has been your approach to the topic?
What you hope the audience will contribute
Here, you can outline what you hope to achieve by bringing the issue to the Dialogue Space for discussion.
Workshops are highly interactive sessions, and should be considered more like training sessions. A workshop is designed to teach something or develop a specific skill. A workshop is directed more towards teaching and learning in an interactive environment. All abstracts submitted for workshops should include learning objectives.
There are very few workshop slots available. Abstracts that do not fit this specification will not be considered.
Please note that scholarship applications cannot be made by those submitting workshop abstracts.
For workshop abstracts, the online submission system will offer you three text boxes with the following headings:
Workshop content
Outline what content you will cover in the workshop.
Learning objectives
Here you should list or describe what you hope partcipants will learn from your workshop.
Expected outcomes
Use this section to talk about the wider application of what participants learn. What change do you think it will inspire in their work? How mights it improve a situation?
New for HR23! If you would like to offer a yoga class, mindfulness session, healing circle etc, this is the type of abstract for you.
There are very few wellbeing session slots available. Abstracts that do not fit this specification will not be considered.
There's no set format for a wellbeing session abstract and we invite you to get creative!
You should use your abstract to outline what your session aims to achieve and make sure you include why you’re qualified to run it.
If you think you can show us better than you can tell us, you're welcome to make a video about your session and submit the link as your abstract. Just don't forget to cover the key points in your video.
New for HR23! Creative arts sessions will explore poetry, music, storytelling, art, photography and more.
There are very few wellbeing session slots available. Abstracts that do not fit this specification will not be considered.
There's no set format for a creative arts session abstract and we invite you to get creative!
You should use your abstract to tell us about you and about what you’d like to share with your fellow delegates.
If you think you can show us better than you can tell us, you're welcome to make a video and submit the link as your abstract.
Each day, we will have one session that is virtual only. If you know that you won’t be attending in person but feel that you have something to contribute to the conference, please consider submitting a virtual-only abstract.
Your abstract should be the same as that for an oral presentation.
There is no set way to lay out a virtual oral abstract, but you might like to consider using one of the following formats for ease:
Here is an example of an effective abstract:
TYPE: Virtual Only
TRACK: Practice
AUTHORS: Mr Joe Bloggs
TITLE: Mothers helping mothers: Innovative role for families in harm reduction, China
ABSTRACT:
------
Issue -
One of the major approaches to dealing with injecting drug users (IDUs) in China has been detoxification/rehabilitation centres. Upon leaving these centres, most IDUs return to a community that does not readily welcome or accept them. Problems with reintegration into the community combined with distrust from their own families can push former drug users to socialize with their former IDU friends and return to injecting and sharing needles.
Setting -
Gejiu City is a major route for drug trafficking in Yunnan Province, China. In 2008, the HIV prevalence among IDUs in Gejiu was 68.5%.
Project -
With funding support from USAID, FHI/China in late 2006 pioneered a new approach: the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention implemented by the Green Garden IDU project in Gejiu. Two volunteer mothers joined the project to help their own children and to change other parents’ attitudes toward IDU interventions. Many IDUs’ families initially ignored the volunteer mothers’ home visits, until the mothers invited them to participate in drop-in centre activities intended to help poor IDU families. These efforts changed attitudes, and more IDUs and their parents began to become involved in activities organised by the mothers on HIV prevention, care and support; harm reduction and MMT promotion; home visits for IDU families; stigma and discrimination reduction activities for community members; and job searching for former drug users.
Outcome -
Between September 2009 and October 2012, the ‘Mother Helping Mothers’ intervention reached 318 IDUs through home visits, and 1,612 community members. An IDU survey in Gejiu in 2010 revealed that IDUs who received home visits reported decreased needle sharing (87.7% never shared needles, 23.1% shared in the past 6 months, and 18.8% in the past month). This model can be an innovative approach to harm reduction in Asian cultures where family ties are strong.
If you have never submitted an abstract before or your previous submissions were unsuccessful, you may wish to apply for help to write your abstract. Thanks to a pool of volunteers, we're able to offer this help on a one-to-one basis. Email us, telling us very briefly what you'd like to write your abstract about and we'll match you up with a mentor.
Apply to receive help with submitting an abstract
Please note: the mentors are all professionals in the harm reduction field who have volunteered to help our delegates with abstract writing. Please understand that they may need a little time and don't leave your request until the last minute.
HRI would like to thank all of our volunteer mentors for making the abstract mentor programme possible.
