Frequently Asked Questions

The conference will take place in the city of Bath, United Kingdom. Details about buildings and rooms will follow in due time. 

To stay updated, you can subscribe to our Earth System Governance newsletter, follow us on LinkedIn and Bluesky, and check for regular updates on our conference website.  

It depends on the sessions you wish to attend. The 2026 Bath Conference will take place primarily in person, with only a limited number of sessions offered in a hybrid format. Plenary Sessions will be streamed live for virtual participants and recorded for later viewing. Please check again when the Preliminary Programme is released in spring 2026 to see which additional sessions may be available for virtual participation. 

For non-presenting participants attending the conference virtually, a limited number of sessions will be available in a hybrid format. The conference will operate in British Summer Time (GMT+1). While we make every effort to accommodate participants from different time zones when scheduling the programme, we cannot guarantee that this will be possible for all hybrid sessions.

You need to submit your proposal via the Conference Portal. The portal is provided by ConfTool, the conference management software used for this conference. 

Please follow the instructions on this page to submit your proposal: https://www.conftool.net/en/user-documentation/instructions-for-authors.html

You can also watch this short video on how to use the Conference Portal.

Yes, you are welcome to submit an abstract. We will review it and determine whether it can be accepted for presentation. Please note that acceptance of a paper for presentation does not guarantee travel support.

Yes, but only for individual paper proposals. Please note that if a presenter chooses to participate online, the likelihood of acceptance will be lower, as only around 20% of the accepted papers can be presented virtually. 

For full panel and innovative session proposals, the submitter must select the option: “I understand that full panels and innovative sessions will be mainly in person, and all presenters are supposed to attend the conference physically”.

There is no direct question about that in the submission form, but there is a question regarding whether the author would like their submission to be considered for the Oran R. Young Prize, which is a prize for the best paper at the conference by early-career researcher. So, if you answer “Yes” to that question, this would indicate that the submission is from an early career researcher.

Please consult the Earth System Governance Science and Implementation Plan (2018) and the core questions that are included in the description of each Conference Stream in the Call for Papers.

No, you can only select one Conference Stream. However, you can add other relevant Conference Streams in the free text-box at the end of the submission page.

Yes, you can submit as many papers and panel proposals as you can manage. But please be realistic and leave time for other conference activities.

This is very common and no problem. The other co-authors names are added in the submission portal.

Yes, it is up to you how you want to design your panel session.

Do not worry too much about the findings/results. As long as the abstract clearly sets out other aspects of the research (research questions, research design, research methods, etc), you can be vague about the findings (e.g. simply stating that you will be presenting the findings of your analysis, without saying in the abstract what these findings are).

Yes, all types of saved submissions can be edited until the deadline.

The time allotted to your presentation will depend on the number of presenters in your panel. As a general guideline, the standard Q&A will be 30 minutes. Therefore, estimated guidelines are: 

• Four Presenters = 15 minutes each 

• Five presenters = 12 minutes each 

• Six Presenters = 10 minutes each 

Please be mindful to respect the chair’s guidelines, and allow each presenter to receive sufficient space for presentation and questions. 

Yes.

The conference fee will be announced at a later stage. Please check our website for regular updates.

We are currently in the process of securing a limited number of travel grants for early-career researchers and researchers from the Global South. More information will be made available in due course on our website.