It names the conference’s themes, its Special Focus for this year, and the deadline. A proposal written without reading it is a proposal written for a different conference.
Write towards a theme, not at the conference in general. The themes are what your proposal will be sorted against.
In a programme of several hundred entries, your title is read hundreds of times and your abstract perhaps twice. Name a finding, not a field. Sentence case, as the form asks.
Nobody opens an abstract to find out whether a talk is relevant. If the title does not say, they scroll on.
The field asks you to summarize the purpose, methods, and implications. That is not a vague prompt — it is the structure the committee reads for, and 2,000 characters is enough for all three if none of them sprawls.
Implications are where most abstracts run out of room, and they are the part a committee is looking for. Write them before you polish the opening.
They do two jobs: they help evaluate the proposal, and they place it in a session. Pick your method, your population, your setting and your concepts — not the four broadest nouns in your field.
Four or five specific keywords beat ten vague ones. Vague keywords match everyone, and a session assembled that way has no conversation in it.
The summary step shows everything at once. Read the abstract back there — it is the last time you see it whole before a committee does.
Up to 2,000 characters. Shorter is fine if all three moves are there; the limit is a ceiling, not a target.
Only if your work genuinely speaks to it. It is the conference’s subject for the year, not a fast lane — and a proposal filed under the wrong theme is read by the wrong reviewers.
The form asks for purpose, methods and implications, not findings. Work in progress is normal at a conference — but say what you expect to be able to show by the time you present.
You revise on your proposal page and it goes back to them. Tracking your submission covers what each outcome means and what to do next.
No — one proposal per event. So there is no fallback: the proposal you send is the one that is read. Worth the extra hour before you press submit. B