Symposia proposals are now closed. Successful applicants would be notified by 1 June, 2023

The ICNA is please to invite Symposia Proposals for the 18th International Child Neurology Congress that will take place in Cape Town, South Africa from May 6-10, 2024. All proposals must be submitted through this website before March 30, 2023 at 5 pm EST. You can access the submission portal here

Guidelines

All proposals must be submitted through this website in the period from Jan 1, 2023 – March 30, 2023 at 5 pm EST. Four symposia will be held concurrently each morning of the four day Congress.

Each symposium will be 2 hours in duration and would be expected to have a total of 3 to 4 speakers drawn from diverse geographic regions. A symposium is meant to be a focused session on a common theme involving an important topic in child neurology and should include new updates. The format should involve introduction and background to the symposium by the Symposium Chair, followed by talks from the speakers. The Chair will be the principal organiser of the symposium.

The Chair will be responsible for collating all of the abstracts of their speakers and submitting the completed proposal by the deadline. Each individual speaker abstract may be up to 1000-1500 characters. The submitted symposia proposals will be evaluated by the Scientific Program Committee (SPC) and the selected Symposia decisions will be sent to the Chairs by May 15, 2023.

Guidelines for Symposium Proposal Submission

Each symposium will be 2 hours long and may include up to 4 invited speakers and must include at least one early-career investigator (within 7 years of completion of training). The individual presentations should reflect distinct aspects of the topic. Wherever possible the speakers should be from various institutions to provide the benefit of cross-institutional collaboration and ideally from at least 2 different geographic regions (Asia-Oceanian, West Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, North America). Each session will have a Chair and Co-chair (optional), both of whom MUST be speakers.

We would encourage the choice of a Co-Chair to be an early career investigator. The speakers should be regionally represented and the four speakers should include a junior member. Those selected will have waived registration. The Scientific Program Committee have developed a regional expert and junior / early career list and we can use this resource to aid you if you are struggling to identify a final speaker for your symposium. If the proposal is accepted, the registration fee will be waived for each speaker and chairperson, but travel and accommodation expenses will NOT be covered.

It is the responsibility of the Chair to confirm directly with the individual speakers prior to proposal submission that should your proposal be accepted, the speakers will definitely attend the meeting, noting the conditions of the financial support, and provided they can travel from their institution and country given any COVID19 restrictions which may be present at the time. The Chair is responsible for all communication with the speakers, including being a primary contact for speakers during the submission and review process, informing the speakers if the symposium bid was successful or not and ensuring that speakers register for the congress.

The SPC reserves the right to combine elements of related symposium proposals, and to adjust the panel of invited speakers. In these cases, the Symposia organizers will be informed by the Chair of the SPC about the changes in their original proposals. If a speaker is on more than two accepted proposals for presentation, the SPC will notify the Chairs of each session to determine a resolution. Other than character limit for the details requested, there is no prescribed format for the overall proposal. It should include a concise description of the purpose, content, and importance of the proposed session.

The Chair is responsible for submitting a summary of their proposal to the Journal of ICNA. Deadlines will not be extended and late submissions will not be accepted. Incomplete individual abstracts as of the deadline will prevent the entire proposal from being forwarded to the SPC for review. ICNA membership is not a requirement for speakers, although it is encouraged. However both Chairs should be ICNA members. ICNA Membership is free and the online application forms are well signposted on the ICNApedia website. https://icnapedia.org/ Kind regards

Jo Wilmshurst (chair ICNC SPC) and Elaine Wirrell (deputy chair ICNC SPC)