SPI Concept notes: You are also welcome to submit a concept note for the Science Policy Interface track. This track translates science into policy. 

Science Policy Interface concept note submission deadline: 14 May 2025. Read the guidelines here 

Topics can include, but are not limited to: 

• Implementation of National Immunisation Programmes
• Respiratory virus infection management and innovations in diagnostics
• Vaccine platforms and policy development for effective vaccination deployment
• Burden of disease in acute respiratory virus infections
• Benefits and challenges of European electronic health registries and immunisation records
• Empowering Preparedness: Harnessing Science to Manage Epidemics and Pandemics
• Vaccination strategies from a policy perspective
• Other topics

Guidelines

General

Please read the following guidelines carefully before submitting your concept note. 

Science Policy Interface (SPI) sessions are an integral part of the conference programme and are announced as such. They are open to all conference delegates and can be organised independently, jointly with, or by ESWI. They can be either plenary or parallel sessions. SPI concept notes can only be submitted by ESWI Coalition partners, research institutions, not-for-profit organisations or public health institutions. Concept notes submitted by individuals or commercial entities will not be accepted for review. 

Concept notes for SPI sessions can only be submitted online via a conference user profile on https://www.conftool.pro/eswi2025/; submissions by fax, post or email will not be considered. You will need to create an online user profile, but you do not need to pay the registration fee to be able to submit a concept note. 

The SPI sessions must comply with ESWI’s commitment to strive for a gender balance in all suggested panels and sessions.

Duration and set-up

SPI sessions are 40 minutes. 

Standard room setup and audio-visual equipment will be included but any additional setup and audio-visual requirements, and speaker costs - including registration, travel, accommodation, food and beverage - will be at the expense of your organisation. All auditoria have a standard theatre-style set-up. 

Topics

Topics can include, but are not limited to: 

• Payment models for National Immunisation Programmes 
• Respiratory virus infection management and innovations in diagnostics 
• Vaccine platforms and policy development for effective vaccination deployment 
• Burden of disease in acute respiratory virus infections 
• Benefits and challenges of European electronic health registries and immunisation records 
• Pandemic Preparedness in Europe 
• Vaccination strategies from a policy perspective 
• Other topics

Submission Process

Conference User Profile

Before submitting a concept note, a conference user profile needs to be created. One or several concept notes can be submitted from the submitting author’s user profile. After a concept note has been created, modifications can be made until the submission deadline. 

The final deadline for abstract submission is 14 May 2025, 23:59 CEST.

Structure and language

All concept notes must be written in English. 

A short description of the aim of the session and its significance is mandatory (min 75 - max 450 words), including: 

• Introductory sentence(s) providing the background 
• Importance / innovation / impact / relevance of the proposed session 
• The educational outcome of the session (how it will benefit our audience) 
• Propose talk titles and speakers – keep titles clear, succinct, and appropriate; adhere to rules and recommendations regarding speaker selection (parity, diversity) 
• Propose chairs (you may choose to involve more junior chairs together with a senior chair, as long as they have the right expertise)

Social Media

ESWI may wish to report on your contribution to the 10th ESWI Conference via social media. You are thus invited to provide a 250 characters maximum message that summarises the main content of your work. ESWI will add the following hashtag: #ESWI2025. Please also provide the platform and handle name of the submitting and presenting author.

Font

A standard font, e.g. Arial, should be used when formatting the text. This helps to prevent special characters from getting lost when copying the text to the online submission form.

Word Limits

The text body is limited to 450 words. Titles are limited to 30 words.
A maximum of three tables and three graphs/images can be included (to be uploaded separately): a graph/image (in JPG, GIF or PNG with ideally 600 dpi) counts as 50 words and a table counts as 10 words per row. Tweets will not be included in the total word count and and should be submitted in the separate field.

Submission Confirmation

After submission of the concept note, a confirmation email will be sent to the submitter and all co-authors, if any. To receive this important communication, please ensure that emails from eswi2025@conftool.pro are not considered as spam by your email provider. For all authors, please make sure that when you make a user and participation profile to attend the conference, you use the email that was used in the abstract submission because that is the only way you can ensure that the abstract is linked to your profile.

Review and Selection Process

Review

All submitted concept notes will go through a reviewing process carried out by an international reviewing committee.

Selection

Proposals may be accepted as originally submitted, but also only in part or following adaptation and/or merging with other proposals. Please note, adaptation of proposals is common practice; important factors that involve making changes in submitted proposals are content, novelty, and speaker quality but also gender and geographical balance, representation of the topics and speakers in previous meetings, possible overlaps with other submitted proposals and with other accepted sessions.
The results will not be discussed.

Notification of Acceptance or Rejection to Corresponding Author

Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent to the submitting (corresponding) author. Please note that only the submitting author will receive mail concerning the concept note and is responsible for informing all co-authors, including the presenting author, of the status of the concept note. Authors whose concept note has been accepted will receive further instructions. To receive these important communications, please ensure that emails from eswi2025@conftool.pro are not considered as spam by your email provider.

Publication of Accepted Concept Notes

Your concept note, if accepted, may appear in its full form in the abstract book and on the virtual conference platform.
It is the author’s responsibility to submit a correct concept note. Any errors in spelling, grammar or scientific fact in the note text will be reproduced as typed by the author.

Check-box

A check-box asking is provided as a necessary step before submitting a concept note. If you are not able to answer yes, you will be asked to elaborate further.

Questions

Any questions regarding the submission should be addressed to annick.mannaerts@eswi.org.